Mass Effect: First Law of Thermodynamics
by Raven Studios
Summary: Despite cutting ties with Cerberus, Shepard's work is never done, and Liara is locked in a dangerous game. A confrontation with the Shadow Broker is inevitable, and other forces have begun to move. Lair of the Shadow Broker as told through 1000-word vignettes. (Cover images all belong to Bioware. As with Mass Effect itself, I'm just borrowing them and giving credit where it's due.)
1. Ruckus

Mass Effect is property of Bioware.

Welcome to First Thermodynamics (and a short-winded author's note)! By now you know the drill: a picture's worth a thousand words, so _Lair of the Shadow Broker_ and peripheral matters appear in thousand-word vignettes. This stuff just didn't fit comfortably with Newton's Second, so here it is as its own thing.

Also, if I failed to answer your reviews for the last chapters of Newton's Second, my apologies. FF-net had a glitch in its notifications and I found several reviews in the 'wall' that didn't make it to my inbox. I think I found them all, but in case I didn't…

Thank you for reading and reviewing,

~Raven Studios

-J-

 **-MASS EFFECT: THE FIRST LAW OF THERMODYNAMICS-**

 _The First Law of Thermodynamics (the law of conservation of energy) states that the total energy of an isolated system is constant; energy can be transformed from one form to another, but can be neither created nor destroyed._

-J-

He could no longer avoid the facts: the woman who had checked out room 203B had to be approached. From all accounts it sounded as though someone was being murdered in there, except there were no screams—only the sounds of heavy objects being flung about and the occasional yelp.

It would be worse, he thought as he stepped out of the elevator, if 203B had any neighbors closer than two doors down. 202B and 204B were empty—she had insisted on that arrangement if possible, and now he knew why. The noise made him jump: it sounded as though something heavy had just hit a wall before 'son of a bitch!' came muffled through the door. More out of habit than out of any real animosity…still…

He bustled up to the door as a lull of sound ensued. For a moment he feared that something horrible might have happened, it was so quiet. He knocked, at first nervously, then he repeated the gesture louder.

This time it was a muffled 'dammit!' that greeted him.

The sounds of footfall approached and he stepped back, which turned out to be a wise course.

The door was wrenched open, revealing the Alliance solider who had checked in earlier. Her pale, hawk-like features, almost unattractively sharp, were pulled into lines of displeasure, a red flush high on her cheekbones, her breathing elevated. Her eyes glittered steely with something akin to murder. " _What_?" It shouldn't be possible for a human woman to ask a question like that and yet seem to show her teeth like an angry dog.

The hotel's manager swallowed hard, eyeing the soldier's general state. Her shirt was gone, revealing the dark sports bra beneath, but one strap was nearly severed. Her belt still threaded the belt loops, but the way the buckle caught on one, it looked as though someone had tried to yank it off the wrong way.

She was lean, almost wasted down to muscle and bone, a hard sort of person used to using heavy labor or long hours of boredom which she filled with physical activity. She made heavy duty safety cables seem like silken threads by comparison.

All up and down her forearms were defensive marks, mostly scrapes and abrasions. They continued across the tight muscles of her belly, across her collar bones in pink lines and…and was that a _bite_ on the muscles where neck joined shoulder? Her lip was split, but glistened faintly with a seal of dried medigel. Her dark hair hung ragged around her face, but rumpled as if she had been thrashing around. It looked as though she might have taken a blow to the face, but if it was bruising her dark hair hid most of it.

"Some of the other patrons were…concerned," he offered timorously. There was something about the soldier that made him feel like…prey…and not in a good way.

"Concerned?" She seemed to taste the word, as though it was unfamiliar, then her mouth spread into a wolfish grin. "They needn't be." She glanced over her shoulder, flexing a hand that suddenly glowed with blue light.

He stifled a shocked intake of breath: she was a biotic.

"Everything is _quite_ under control," she almost purred the words, still managing to show far too many teeth for such a faint smile. In the back of his mind, he recognized that this smile could be alluring… _if_ she didn't seem to be sizing him up, like a varren eying a pyjak before the spring and chomp.

"But…it sounds like there's a war going on…" Bad choice of words: she was a soldier. They could be… _touchy_ about 'war' comments. It depended on the soldier and their specialization—if any—or whether the speaker was in the service or not.

"It's a skirmish, not a war."

As if that was supposed to be reassuring!

"Not this time, at least." She shifted her footing, drawing attention to the fact that she had, somehow, lost one of her boots. She bent over, freed the laces and pulled the other article free, but held it in her hand as though she meant to attack someone with it. With brutal speed and the precision of one well-practiced in such things, she threw the boot. It reached a turn in the wall and a biotic push sent it rocketing around the corner, eliciting a muffled curse.

"Did I get you?" she asked cockily, before giving a low snicker.

The muttered response (he could not tell if it was a promise or a threat) did not translate, but the manager was sure he did not want to know what it meant. The flanged tones told the manager all he wanted to know. Before his mouth could curl into disgust the woman darted out a hand, grabbed him by the shirt, and dragged him to within inches of her face, her eyes filling his vision. "You know, those who sneer most are those most guilty. Should I start asking inconvenient questions where others can hear them?"

The manager shook his head. It didn't matter if she was correct or not: there was madness in her eyes, a contained sort of madness, the most deadly kind, because she knew she was mad and _liked_ it. Normally he would assert his prerogative, turn them out but…he had the feeling it might not be conducive to his own longevity.

"Good…."

A chuckle came from around the corner. Plainly someone approved her handling of the situation.

She gave him a shove and slammed the door, turning away as she did so.

The last the manager saw was something dark come at her. She slammed into the closed door with a yelp before something heavy hit the ground muted by distance. He winced at the sound of breaking glass and a shout that undoubtedly belonged to the woman—though of censure, not discomfort.

Why, he wondered grimly as he strode back to the stairs, did they have to pick _his_ hotel to trash?


	2. Inconvenienced

"The hell happened to you?" Jack demanded, frowning at Rogers.

Rogers followed Jack's gaze to her arms, much abraded and sporting several distinct talon marks. "Boyfriend was in town." Not even 'boyfriend' really. 'Bunk buddy.'

"And people think I'm sick—who won?" the biotic asked sneeringly.

Rogers rolled her eyes. What poor little Jack did not seem to realize was that she—Jack—hard-boiled and casual about liaisons, had a greater capacity for affection and _love_ than she, Rogers, did.

And Rogers felt it a point in her favor that she could admit it.

Rogers felt it was a point in Jack's favor that the girl retained this vestige of attention-starved weakness: it made d'Angelo's job, however he chose to carry it out, easier. A close friend could tether Jack. The appearance of an invested lover could chain her—and Rogers would have preferred chains.

Ah, well, it was d'Angelo's body. He had a right to dispose of it in any way he chose.

"Do you really need to ask?" Rogers' smile hid the fact that she would rather have died a painful death—falling into Pavo's talons in time of war, for instance—than admit that she had not, this time, been the one calling the shots. If she had to guess, he'd been _missing_ her, so much as their rather practical, cutthroat, and convenient relationship went. Clearly one human wasn't enough like another for him _not_ to miss her.

She hated it when Pavo managed to take control of their little get-togethers, but familiarity did breed contempt, in her experience. It was not so much a lack of enjoyment on her part but a matter of principle. She, Rogers, preferred being in control. Pavo might get…ideas…if he saw her out of breath and relatively quiescent one too many times.

The bastard buzzard.

Still…for someone in his position—with regards to the galaxy—Pavo was a remarkably poor turian.

He _never_ followed orders. At least, not in her considerable experience.

"Ugh," Jack grunted, watching Rogers rub her forearm thoughtfully, an unpleasant smile that hinted at a kinky, rough shore leave playing across the XO's lips.

"Now, are we here to discuss my personal life, or do you have something on your mind?"

"It's none of these little shits' business," Jack retorted before stalking off.

Rogers followed complacently. Dealing with Jack was like dealing with a little child, and Rogers was not a mother for a _reason_. Truly, if the Agency didn't place a recall (or kill order) on this irritating scrap of humanity, she, Rogers, might just be pushed to the extreme of finding out what it would take to make Jack crack like an overripe melon and then deal with the fallout.

No, Rogers corrected herself. That would be _wasteful_. Jack had her uses.

"I've got these thoughts in my head," Jack began irately and without preamble, once they were in her quarters. "They're crawling around like bugs."

Rogers, without invitation, sat down on Jack's bed, produced her cigarettes and—against her inclinations—offered Jack one before lighting up herself. Strictly speaking, one should not smoke on a spaceship, but Rogers found that dealing with Jack made her want to burn through an entire pack in short order.

Currently, Jack seemed to prefer fidgeting to smoking, a sure sign of a perturbed mind.

Now what, Rogers wondered as Jack took a few moments to rant, could work the girl up so much? Nothing truly dangerous—Jack liked dangerous things. Something mundane, then. But personal: personal things always pissed Jack off, and she was certainly well on her way to _that_ state of mind.

A bomb. That was what Jack wanted: a military grade nuclear device planted smack in the middle of Teltin facility on Pragia.

That would make Morgan happy. He loved explosives.

But destroying Teltin would undoubtedly bring up painful memories for Jack and then the girl would get all soppy and maudlin. Best to bring d'Angelo. She—Jack—could get weepy and sentimental on _his_ shoulder. This might just be the push d'Angelo would need to bring Jack totally in thrall.

Sex was a powerful weapon, particularly when damaged goods saw _affection_ as being present. Not as most people would see it, but in some way that appealed to some small, twisted part of Jack. Probably the affection reserved for drowning kittens, but Jack didn't need to know that.

"Of course. We'll divert for Pragia immediately." Best to get it over with.

Jack, understandably, seemed surprised that Rogers should be so accommodating.

The officer adopted a mildly hurt look. "Come, now, Jack: haven't I told you that I value the welfare of my crew? That includes yours. If blasting that hellhole into an actual _hole_ is what will help you focus, then we'll blast that hellhole into an actual hole. I've always wanted to see if a ghost can be killed—you'll keep me apprised on the state of yours…?"

This elicited a grim, rather ugly smile from Jack. "Maybe."

'Maybe' was as good as it got with Jack. "I'll make this happen. I know where there are a couple of warheads lying around…or maybe we could jury-rig one. That would be easier."

"I don't _care_ ," Jack put in mutinously. "I just want the place _gone_." Her voice shook a little, a hint of the petulant, frightened child that lurked beneath the rage-filled surface showing, much to Rogers' disgust. If Jack could have been _all_ rage and hate things would be much better.

"Jury-rigged, then. Definitely jury-rigged. I'll have Morgan do it."

The only thing Morgan would like better than witnessing an explosion at close quarters would be building the bomb that did it. He'd have to read up a little bit, but Morgan was a genius when it came to destruction—the wider in scope the better he got.

With that, Rogers took her leave of the growing-morose Jack, now sucking darkly on her cigarette.

Like dealing with a child. A hormonal, angst-filled, rage-filled teenager.


	3. Irritable

_Clunk_. The mass effect field at the end of the firing range—or, at this moment the biotic practice range—caught the ball of dark energy, which dissipated. The mass effect field fluxed as it reset, leaving Jack to hurl another bolus at it. With someone like Rogers, Trey or Tonya aboard, having something for biotics to practice on was essential.

 _Clunk._

 _Clunk._

 _Clunk._

Too bad the gong used for pistol practice couldn't stand up to a biotic assault. It would have been more soothing to hear the thing clang and ping with each impact.

She glanced to the right, catching motion out of the corner of her eye. She would have to turn her head to see properly, but she refused to give d'Angelo the satisfaction… even if she would have liked to watch.

Or maybe the reason she didn't want to look that way was the fact that Morgan was on the other side of the cargo bay and had been for… who knew how long. Enough for fifty rounds out of a pistol, then a rifle, and was now on a shotgun. Morgan, she could do without having to see.

She had the sneaking suspicion—as d'Angelo and Morgan had arrived at about the same time—that the albino had done it on purpose and not 'by coincidence' as he would probably maintain. He knew that Morgan set her on edge. Morgan could set _anyone_ on edge; the man was even more psycho than she was, a mad dog Rogers had somehow leashed but which would turn on everyone given a reason…or a chance. 

_Clunk._

 _Clunk._

She glanced back to the right. D'Angelo had this weird exercise routine he liked to do, and he was doing it now. Part of her would have been content to give up practice for the day and watch his. She had very little appreciation for art but she _did_ have an appreciation for male bodies and d'Angelo's was a particularly fine example.

He also hit like a truck; she'd seen it. So his whatever-it-was wasn't purely exercise. It had real application…and that was a bit of a turn-on. Artsy off-duty, killer if he got sucked into close-range combat.

 _Clunk._

 _Clunk._

Morgan's arms fire had finally ceased for longer than it took to change weapons. She glanced over at him then wished she hadn't: he was staring in that fixed way of his. Supposedly he wanted to study her ink; d'Angelo had, once and as if at random, assured her Morgan really meant it and nothing more. However, she felt it smarter to just keep the bastard just out of range of a good shockwave.

 _Clunk._

 _Clunk._

She'd like to 'clunk' his head in. Splatter it like a melon…

But she knew better. Not for the first time, she wondered why the hell she was here. Rogers got her out of Purgatory. Rogers definitely gave her plenty of targets to mow over. But Rogers creeped her out.

She ought to get the hell out, just leave the next time they were in port. The fact that she hadn't said something to her.

The 'fact' needed to speak up, dammit. Because whatever it was saying, she wasn't hearing it.

 _Clunk._

 _Clunk._

Or maybe she was even more out of temper than usual because she hadn't slept well. She'd dreamed of Teltin, and Pragia, and…afterwards.

 _Clunk-clunk-clunk-clunk-clunk._

Those were memories that would put anyone out of temper.

She glanced sidelong again. Morgan—that creeper—was gone, but d'Angelo remained, still running through the prescribed movements, breathing regulated, motion flowing like water. If her sudden display of annoyance caught his attention he didn't show it, didn't interrupt his whatever-he-was-doing to bother her with a question of whether she was alright.

That was d'Angelo. He had an almost supernatural sense of when to keep his damn mouth shut. He was the first person she'd met who could time questions of the 'are you alright?' nature so that she didn't snap, snarl, or try to warp him into jelly.

The guy wasn't all there…but neither were most of Rogers' ground team. Herself included, she supposed.

Still, she'd rather deal with his crazy than Morgan's…or Trey's and Tonya's. She didn't know exactly how unhealthy their relationship was, but it was probably as messed up as it looked.

 _Clunk_

 _Clunk._

She sensed more than heard or saw when d'Angelo abandoned his exercises and came to stand behind her shoulder. If she turned around to jab with an elbow she'd hit only air, but she knew he was there because he recognized the change in pitch as the biotic blasts hit the mass effect shield. She was getting tired. Her amp was hot. She was hot and sweaty and felt like she hadn't accomplished anything except to brood herself into an even worse mood.

"You're troubled."

"Didn't sleep well," she grunted, turning away from the field to face him.

"That's unfortunate."

"Yeah." That was all there was to the conversation and she knew it.

His brand of concern and sympathy—she didn't know what else to call it—avoided rasping against any frayed or raw nerves. When he did chance to hit one—and he had on several occasions—he always managed to apologize without apologizing and never came near the raw nerve again.

She stretched, rolling her shoulders and arching her back.

He watched her. She knew he would. The problem was she wasn't sure what went on inside that weirdly-wired mind of his.

"Need a shower. Care to join me?" she asked, smirking at him.

"No," he answered firmly, but otherwise tonelessly.

"You sure? I'll let you scrub my back."

"Absolutely not."

Jack gritted her teeth. "Whatever." She turned on her heel and stalked off. It would be easier to deal with rejection if he sounded repulsed, disgusted, or insulted. But he never did. He always answered in the disapproving don't-joke-about-that tone of someone casually asked to do something morally wrong.

She wasn't sure what to think about that.


	4. Nerves

Jack's foot jiggled as she sat in the Kodiak, d'Angelo and Rogers both facing her. In the main storage compartment was The Bomb. She always thought of it in capital letters: The Bomb was going right in her old room and was going to wipe out this pisshole once and for all.

The thought conjured up that bizarre feeling that had begun to stalk her since Rogers agreed that this side trip could be made. The feeling was a nauseating mix of being thoroughly pissed off and utterly terrified, as if the woman she was and the girl she used to be were both in a sealed room, screaming and pounding on the glass.

Her skin crawled; she'd spent enough time shouting and pounding on the glass that…

"Jack."

The softly-spoken word made her eyes pop open, slammed the brakes on the rising tide of thought and memory.

She had a brief moment to see d'Angelo looking at her with those oddly pink eyes, then he closed them, recomposed himself into an attitude of rest. And, as was not uncommon, she found her own mindset trying to settle down, like a grumpy, ornery, hard-done-by dog cozying up to a warm fireplace.

She glanced at Rogers, the imperturbable Rogers, absorbed in reading a datapad, a stress ball hanging in the air, compressing and expanding as the biotic field in which it hung constricted and released. Rogers was a big fan of that kind of stupid 'dexterity exercise.'

She, Jack, didn't see the point. Unless she was going to launch the stupid ball down someone's throat (or stuff it up their ass), who needed to be able to do those stupid parlor tricks? Her job was to smash shit, tear through the opposition, and try not to rearrange the team's molecules when she got going or—as Rogers had patiently reminded her on several occasions—not to rearrange the _crew's_ molecules when she got bored.

D'Angelo had been less polite: 'don't warp the crew into paste just because you're throwing a tantrum.' On that first occasion—and she didn't even remember why she'd been upset—he'd counseled her to look in a mirror if she needed to blame someone. On the next occasion he'd confused her by taking her side and had handled the matter himself.

She frowned at him. D'Angelo was a semi-constant puzzle—'semi' because he really did seem to have her welfare in mind when he had to deal with her…and unlike Rogers, he wasn't interested in her ability to shred things to pulp or smash them into smithereens.

She wasn't even sure what he wanted from her. Nothing she would consider 'the obvious.' He'd turned 'the obvious' down flat.

"Coming up on the Teltin Facility," the pilot announced.

Jack squirmed uncomfortably.

"What can you tell us about this facility?" Rogers asked, gripping her stress ball so hard Jack expected it to rupture.

"It's a Cerberus shithole—what else do you need to know?" Jack demanded.

"Environmental concerns, perhaps," came d'Angelo's unperturbed clarification, sweeping across Rogers' snidely calm response—the kind of put-down she used in the face of 'undue levity' when she was being completely serious.

Jack looked away, lips pursing. "The vegetation's pretty bad; they had to clear it away daily to keep it from overrunning the facility. It almost always rains."

…or that was what she understood from overhearing conversations and knew from her one…excursion.

D'Angelo was watching her again. She wished he wouldn't; already antsy, the attention made her feel even more…squirmy…than ever. Still, she couldn't deny—not to herself—that she was glad he was here. Rogers knew that 'trying to understand' pissed Jack off, so she left it to d'Angelo, with the result that Rogers maintained a distanced attitude.

It was necessary, so she would do it, but probably wouldn't have an opinion either way. Or sympathy, but Jack would be the first to say she didn't _want_ Rogers' damn sympathy…

"Jack."

The second call back to the current situation came just as gently as the first, just as unobtrusive as the first. In fact, this time d'Angelo didn't even open his eyes. Or maybe he'd just closed them really quick—the guy was like a lizard in that respect. He could—so it seemed to her—go for hours without blinking if he wanted to, and had the gift of closing his eyes so quickly that it seemed he never had them open…you didn't even catch the telltale flicker of movement out of the corner of your eyes…

Jack shivered again. D'Angelo could be very creepy sometimes but, if she _had_ to admit to liking someone…she liked him, anyway. He made her nervous, made her uncomfortable sometimes…but never in the way she was used to being made nervous or uncomfortable.

And she doubted even Rogers, astute and perceptive, really knew what d'Angelo was thinking at any given time.

Jack shifted in her seat; she really hated being back here. And she wished it would stop raining.

"Boss, we've got something weird on scanners," the pilot announced, a frown in his voice.

"What's weird?" Rogers asked, her stress ball dropping into her hand.

"We were told the plant-life here'll eat up anything left alone for very long, but we've got a clear airstrip and several heat signatures within the facility."

Rogers looked at Jack. "Shall I send for Morgan?"

"Hell no." With this, and a scowl, Jack's biotics flared. Of all of the crew, she like Morgan least. She didn't like his way of trying to study her ink, didn't like his silent stalker-ish presence on the ship—even when he wasn't paying any attention to her.

He was a freak, even if he also made her nervous and uncomfortable in a way she was unused to….in a way that was completely different from d'Angelo's and which made her want the albino close to hand. That way, if she warped Morgan—the twisted little freak—into a donut, someone could back her up.


	5. Conflict

Jack swallowed as she descended into the darkness. She flinched as a light flared. "The hell are you doing, dumbass? Shut that thing off!"

D'Angelo, who had popped a glowstick and was holding it in his pistol-free hand looked at her with that oddly calm expression. "The darker it is, the more things can go 'bump.'"

"I think I'd know something about that," Jack sneered, knowing full well he meant 'go bump in the night' in the context of ghosts and monsters. She was never really sure what d'Angelo believed, but he certainly seemed to think that certain things had power, and he was deft at stripping them of it.

"Not the sort of things I'm thinking of," came d'Angelo's vague response, a polite declaration that Jack found irritating but oddly reassuring. There was something that eased her paranoia at being back here as the shadows retreated from d'Angelo's glowstick. He stopped at her shoulder, silently waiting for her to lead the way.

Jack swore, more out of habit than anything else, then shook her head. "Whatever."

She didn't like being back here. If it hadn't been for Rogers levitating that bigass bomb and—though Jack would not have admitted it, tried not to admit it to herself even—d'Angelo's sturdy, solid presence… "All right, ghostbuster, bring your damn light."

The facility had fallen into near-total disrepair, as one might expect. The plants of Pragia had claimed a lot of it and it had flooded several times, to judge by the dirt deposits.

The silence bothered her, made her nervous. "See those? Those are the containers they used to bring the kids in. They were screwed up and starving, but mostly alive." She didn't know this for certain, but it felt better to have sounds apart from the persistent rain and the scurries of small animals (real or imagined).

"A grim business," d'Angelo answered.

She was sure he was pandering to her need for sound to banish the silence, just as he'd anticipated the benefit of the light to dispel the darkness. Oddly enough, he really did seem to be stripping away this place's…aura. The draw it exerted on her, had always exerted on her.

She swallowed, wondering just how much their many short conversations had softened her up. D'Angelo was still a puzzle: she'd seen him brutal, effective, relentless—it was a real turn on when it happened—but at the same time he had a way of being personable…she didn't trust the personable ones, so she hated that odd feeling she got sometimes. It was higher up than the usual tingles and the two sensations never occurred at the same time.

Damn him.

But he always seemed to be looking for something. He'd once referred to 'saving the galaxy,' but she'd had the impression that he didn't really know how, that working with Rogers was simply an experiment on his path to…what? Enlightenment? It was in those few moments where he'd touched on his own goals, when hints of his past came through—she asked fewer questions than he did on the principle of not liking to 'get to know people'—that she had the sense of his being as lost as she sometimes felt.

Only he didn't get pissed off about it.

He should.

Jack's sense of irritation did not decrease one milligram as they worked their way into the guts of the facility. Security logs, vid recordings…nothing seemed to match her memory of the situation. And d'Angelo, that jackass, wasn't helping matters. He seemed to have fingers on the pulse of this place, seemed to know when to speak and when to keep silent.

Rogers kept silent, too, but more out of boredom than anything else. Rogers wouldn't be interested unless bullets started flying or shit started exploding.

She, Jack, should have entertained a similar opinion. She knew she should.

He questioned very little without her opening conversation. It was hard to tell, for instance, whether the arena where the guards held pit fights, bothered him or not. He seemed to drink it in, both the physical objects and her explanation.

How did _that_ fit into his idea of saving the galaxy?

"Any opinion on _that_?" she asked, annoyed at feeling waspish.

"They damaged you."

Well, she'd asked for an opinion, and d'Angelo was damnably clever about things like that. He'd tell you something without telling you anything.

"And saving the galaxy?" she wished he'd _react_ , not just be calm like that. Part of her resented the lessening of her nightmares; most of her resented the discrepancies between her memories and the vague indications left by those who died a long time ago.

"This place will soon be dead. I cannot battle the things that went on here," came the simple answer.

"Would you have?"

D'Angelo looked her in the eye. "The means are not justified; I would have saved you if I could."

Well, she'd wanted an answer—and it was _such_ a classically d'Angelo answer…but somehow she had the feeling that, while he might have supported the idea of creating a super-biotic, he would have put a stop to the methodology if he'd come across it. With d'Angelo many things were permissible, but once that line was crossed…

…well, then he got _really_ interesting. It bothered her that, even at his most worked up, he'd never responded to any of her not-so-subtle suggestions. She could never tell how he was interested in her. Sometimes it seemed like he wanted her. Most of the time he seemed to be mildly interested in enjoying short bursts of her company.

Once or twice, though, she'd caught an expression on his face—just a glimmer that he didn't seem to realize he'd let show—that made her want to bit her lip and look away.

"I think we have company," Rogers announced, sauntering ahead of the group in order to prod a recently killed varren with her foot.

Good. Jack wanted something to vent her temperamental uncertainty on.


	6. Demons

D'Angelo watched Jack's sinuous swagger deteriorate into an almost skittish shuffle that she unconsciously tried to conceal. The strength of sustained rage upon which she was so reliant for fortitude dwindled and threatened to go out, leaving cold, silence, and darkness.

Three things that the human psyche recoiled from as from little else. There were, of course, friendly darknesses, easy silences…but cold made both unfailingly sinister. It was something ingrained into the mind of every human: a fear of being cold in the dark and the silence.

It was amazing humanity had ever mastered spaceflight, willingly surrounding themselves with cold, dark silence.

"It's strange being back here," Jack mumbled from just ahead of him. She hadn't noticed it, but she'd gradually closed the distance between them. If he took a stride that was more than a shuffle, he's end up stepping on the back of one of her heels.

Which would irritate her, and he has no desire to do so. She spent so much time angry; he had no intention of adding to that reservoir of ill feeling.

Justified ill feeling, most of it…but ill feeling nonetheless.

"I feel like…I'm pissed off. I'm a dangerous bitch. But then I'm a little girl again." Her voice trembled, then she snorted. "Shit, it's complicated. Let's go plant that damn bomb." She started off, her steps assertive and rather too long for someone of her stature, but the physical projection of toughness, of unapproachability vanished within twenty paces, returning her to what was—by her standards—'crowding him.'

He didn't mind. He approved: all things good in the galaxy knew he was safer to crowd than most people she'd ever come in contact with.

He didn't like this place. He couldn't feel its ghosts the way Jack did, but there was something malevolent here. One of the things that stalked the dreams of small children lurked here, made him wish he could truly battle the incorporeal.

His own inner demons could comfortably transplant themselves here, if he hadn't stripped them of their powers long ago.

He glanced at Jack again. He couldn't strip other people's inner demons of their powers, but he could help those being stalked do so on their own. If there was a way to help Jack do so, he would find it. It was all he could do as he looked for effective ways to further his goals.

Goals which, he could honestly say, would cause her neither harm nor give her a reason to hold a grievance with him.

"This…it's a two-way mirror?" Jack walked as close to it as the catwalks permitted, reached out to touch the cold glass, coated in condensation. The little droplets caught and returned the light from the glowstick he carried. Light to banish the darkness, words to banish the silence…but there was little he could do for Jack to combat the cold. She would never reach out to a fellow human being as a defense against chill.

Perhaps, he thought as he watched her examine her reflection, that was best.

"I used to scream at them for hours and they always ignored me."

He suspected this was not the fault of the other children. The two-way mirror was suggestive.

The path towards Jack's cell continued, with Jack becoming more and more agitated, trying harder and harder not to show it. But these things could not be completely hidden from d'Angelo's eyes.

Things like Rogers' complete callousness over this place. Rogers hadn't exorcised her inner demons: she'd destroyed them utterly and at a young age. She gave nothing power over her, let nothing influence her.

She was strong because she was a dead thing. A walking corpse that didn't know pain or fear because it lacked the faculties to feel either. One of these days she would be torn apart by some enterprise upon which she embarked and there would be an end—an ugly, painful end—to Eva K. Rogers.

He hoped he would find a better way of accomplishing his goals before that happened. One way or another though, people like Rogers seemed to have the devil's own luck. Unfortunately, sometimes one had to work with a devil.

"I must have come through here when I broke out, but I don't remember it…"

People often blocked that sort of thing out-particularly if 'panic' was involved. He found himself wishing she could block out a great number of things, and could only hope that a sympathetic, undemanding ear might have helped diminish her inner demons in some small way.

That was the power of this place: he rarely thought about 'inner demons' as being 'inner demons'. He didn't usually think so hard about them—it gave them power. He'd become well practiced in not giving them power.

He found himself also wishing that the reason for the dead varren, the freshly killed varren, would hurry up and stumble of across their path. A good fight would be what Jack needed to bolster her through the rest of this hellhole. Without some kind of additional fortification, she would not make it to the cell in any condition to do anything about it. The place would have gripped her too hard, squeezed her too hard…and even if the place was gone she would take it with her and would never be able to diminish its hold on her.

And that would be a shame.

People who lived this sort of hell deserved to be free of it, healed from it.

This sort of hell deserved to be leveled, blasted from human memory and submerged in the indignity of being _forgotten_ as its victims moved into better places, better places with regards to body, mind and soul.

This cell was lucky he hadn't been here. He would have razed it to the ground long ago. The least he could do now was to see that as much of it that could be destroyed was. And this was not limited to merely eradicating the building.


	7. Callous

"Come out of there, or I will fetch you out," Rogers' tone indicated that whoever was lurking would _not_ like it if she had to apply herself.

"The hell are you?" Jack demanded, her voice sharp.

Rogers looked from her to d'Angelo and back. She was not worried about d'Angelo defecting or anything foolish. He didn't concern himself with what was past—he couldn't fix it, therefore he didn't expend energy on it. His entire now was based on saving Jack—even if he might not admit it to himself. She recognized an evolving hero complex when she saw one; the question was just how long he would manage to stay aloof from the object benefitting from his guardianship.

Because she knew d'Angelo, and she knew that something about Jack appealed to him.

What that was, Rogers couldn't imagine. The biotic was so skinny and temperamental.

"I'm Aresh. And you're breaking into my home."

Rogers wished she could fish out a smoke. It was cold in here, and d'Angelo's glowstick wasn't designed to alleviate that. She supposed she could work her biotics a bit, warm up her amp…but that would be wasteful.

"I know you, Subject Zero."

"My name is _Jack_ ," Jack snarled, but there was petulance in her tone.

Oh, just kill the fool and be done with it. Rogers recognized unsalvageable damaged goods when she saw them.

"So many years have passed. But I know you."

Very theatrical. They _should_ just do as Jack suggested, find out who 'Aresh' was and plant the bomb on his corpse. Easy, clean, expedient.

She caught d'Angelo's eyes, rendered an odd peachy-range color in the glowstick's unnatural yellow. Of course _he_ wouldn't counsel Jack to kill Aresh. Whether the man escaped the blast radius of Morgan's baby or not was of no concern of d'Angelo's. He clearly felt that Jack shooting this little hiccup would be detrimental to her.

Rogers wanted to say 'trust me, she can't get any more unstable than _that._ ' It was true. She knew unstable when she saw it, by virtue of being unstable herself. She was functionally unstable because she acknowledged the problem and made a strength of it.

According to d'Angelo's very odd philosophies, she had conquered her inner demons and taken away their power.

What a load of rubbish. It sounded like voodoo to her, and she didn't believe in voodoo.

"It looks as though you aren't the only one pulled back here," d'Angelo's voice announced gently.

Rogers suppressed her readiness to leave. If d'Angelo was talking, Jack would listen. She might fume, she might swear, she might snub…but she would listen. D'Angelo's words were new, something unusual, of course they'd capture the attention of that suspicious childlike mind.

"I tried to forget this."

Ah, and yet another loony was reacting to d'Angelo's indefinable aura, or charm, or whatever it was that the loonies found so engaging.

"But a place like this?" Aresh tapped the side of his head. "It doesn't forget _you_. It follows you."

Rogers did slip out, at that point, leaned against the wall near the doorway—so she could keep an ear open—and produced a pack of her favorite cigarettes. Everyone had their little addictions and she knew she indulged in hers a little too often.

But who wanted to live to be old and decrepit?

Jack's voice rose sharply, "There's no reason good enough! Are you nuts? You _lived_ it!"

D'Angelo's voice cut in, low and calming.

Rogers took a deep breath, let it out slowly. It would be _so_ much faster to just cap Aresh and go.

The voices continued. Abruptly, Aresh's voice rose, "Everything we went through must have been for _something_!"

Unwise to raise one's voice at Jack, unless she had a reason _not_ to mangle you into pulp. It was like looking an angry dog in the eyes.

"What do we do with another you?" d'Angelo was asking as Rogers silently eased back into the room, leaning against the wall. No one observed her return.

"Just leave me here," Aresh said, "this is where I belong."

Jack, with a snarl flared, slammed a biotic pulse into Aresh that sent him crashing to the ground.

"Jack," d'Angelo put out an arm as Jack drew her pistol, "he's trapped in his past; you need to move on from yours."

"You heard him!" Jack shouted. "He wants to restart this place—"

"This man is crazy and will get it off the ground," d'Angelo answered firmly.

"He needs to _die_!" Jack argued.

Rogers could have told her that if she hadn't killed Aresh by now she wasn't going to. Jack was an all-at-once person, for the most part.

"He needs to or you need him to? Your past does not have to hold sway over you."

Jack scowled at Aresh, her expression contorted between wanting to kill Aresh and listening to d'Angelo's insidious influence. Finally, she lowered her pistol, swearing with all the eloquence Rogers expected of her. "Get out of here. Just _go_." Jack turned her attention to d'Angelo, her expression all too open.

Rogers infinitely preferred Jack's rabid killer face.

"He's not worth chasing," Jack muttered, "none of it is."

Then they could plant the bomb and leave? Oh, _please_ say they could plant the bomb and _leave_.

D'Angelo did not tell Jack she'd 'done the right thing,' but he didn't have to: it hung, as did his approval of Jack's actions (or, rather, inaction), in the air.

Before Rogers could ask 'well?' Jack spoke up. "This place was my whole childhood. Let me look around for a minute." She did not seem to realize she had overridden Rogers' remark.

Again, before Rogers could speak she was overridden, this time by d'Angelo (who also fixed her with a 'don't get in my way' sort of look). Clearly he was 'exorcising demons' or whatever voodoo he did. "Take your time."

Rogers rolled her eyes: his tone said 'make your peace.'

Ugh, d'Angelo and his bizarre belief systems…


	8. Order and Chaos

Jack lay awake, watching the darkness, hearing the silence.

Well, it _would_ have been silent except for the never ending hum of the drive core and the steady in-and-out of d'Angelo breathing.

He was possibly the most infuriating man and confusing person she'd ever had the questionable fortune to meet. She still wasn't sure what to make of him. He was just a weirdo, she decided firmly. She needed to be decided about him for the sake of her own sanity. So she labeled him 'weirdo' and figured it would be enough.

Except that it wasn't.

She sighed heavily, her mouth twisting as she slowly, carefully stretched. The motion was catlike and careful—apparently d'Angelo was a _very_ light sleeper. She wouldn't have expected it in someone so confident and comfortable in his skin and his place in the galaxy.

He didn't twitch, didn't take that quick breath that signaled he was awake.

Jack settled back down, nestling closer to his warm bulk. She had never had a man spend the night with the express dual purpose of being close to her and actually getting some sleep.

 _No. I'll stay with you, hold you. But nothing more: not while you're tired. Not while you're sad. Ask me again on a better day._

Normally, she'd have resented being called tired and sad; she hadn't denied either word even if she was sure she didn't accept them. Something in his tone gave the words a meaning beyond what she usually associated with them. She just couldn't say what that was.

More perplexingly, he'd stuck to that line in spite of several attempts to change his mind. He'd been playful about it, innocent touches, kisses even—but never where she could turn them into a lip-lock. He was a man for whom a decision overrode everything else—because he was definitely not uninterested.

Normally she'd have kicked him out of bed and out of the room. On this occasion however, she'd had too much to think about and if she _did_ kick him out she wanted a real reason.

But he _had_ said 'ask me again' which was a deviation from his usual behavior. She wasn't sure what to think about that. 'Not no, just not now' was not an answer to which she was accustomed. It left her feeling… odd. She didn't know what to do with an idea like that.

She couldn't say his demure attitude made him more desirable; in fact, her own patience in this respect boggled her mind as much as anything else related to d'Angelo.

Jack ground her teeth, then gasped as a warm hand came to rest over her diaphragm. "That's bad for your teeth," d'Angelo observed blandly.

"How long have _you_ been awake?" she asked grumpily.

He placed a kiss above her implant, lingering so she could feel his smile. "I don't sleep much."

It was better than 'long enough,' she thought sourly.

-J-

D'Angelo loosened his grip when Jack squirmed, then tightened it again when she settled. He considered it an achievement that she'd slept through most of the night untroubled by nightmares. Teltin was enough to give anyone nightmares.

Aresh had it right. A place like that _remembered_ its victims; a place like that never let them go unless _compelled_. And even then, the dark fingers remaining had to be pulled out like stubborn splinters.

The thought prompted him to place another kiss on the back of her neck. She always smelled, ever so faintly, like eezo. Even when she wasn't using her biotics, the smell lingered.

It was good to wipe it out, to let Pragia swallow it up and obliterate it from everything but whatever documentation remained in Cerberus' undoubtedly vast archives. Frankly, he thought the Illusive Man was willfully blind on too many occasions. If he could miss such proceedings—biotics being rare and valuable resources—he had too many projects running. In-person surprise inspections were underrated.

To be honest, he had a low opinion of the Illusive Man as a manager. He plainly didn't understand that an entity fighting to support a cause like 'human advancement' had to hold itself to a higher moral standard than any other, something that could hold up to scrutiny.

Otherwise those they were supposedly advancing didn't believe in the cause and if they didn't believe in the cause… well. That spoke for itself: the cause was false and corrupt. Not for the first time, the thought that it was time to leave Rogers and try elsewhere came up.

He glanced down at Jack, who seemed to have settled back into a kind of half-doze. It would be unwise to leave her here with Rogers.

And, unfortunately, his crusade didn't allow for two people; not if one of them was Jack. She didn't understand his motivations. He doubted she could—and no offense to her, no failing on her part. She was a product of her experiences, just as he was. They had simply arrived at different locations, propelled by those experiences.

He almost wished she could share in his crusade.

But little birds with broken wings didn't stay. However willingly they might eat from one's hand, however content they were to perch on one's fingers, to sing little trills to fill the silence, there always came a time when they flew away, back to the life they knew and away from the safe harbor.

He bit the inside of his lip, studying the curve of Jack's neck, the elegant shape of her skull. It wasn't like him to be so sentimental. Was it possible he'd finally grown weary of his crusade? What would he be without it? Behind the fear lurked a sort of flat disapproval: he might be tired, but he still had plenty left in him for the long march.

Probably he just hadn't rested well: Jack refused to allow a light, leaving the both of them in the dark with her demons.

At the very least they hadn't troubled her sleep.


	9. Pilgrimage

Mindoir was a beautiful place—a hell of a place to grow up. The sweeping plains of the Golden Ring—the thick band of rich farmland located in the southern hemisphere—lived up to their name. Zipping through them on his rented motorcycle was like zipping along a bridge between expanses of golden, rippling water. It was growing cool, the air stinging against his cheeks. They were on the verge of the harvest season, and the whole of the farmlands he had passed lived up to the word 'bountiful.'

The road forked abruptly at the edge of someone's farmstead, forcing Alenko to stop, reach into his jacket, and pull out his map.

He had never expected to come here and, if he had, he would not have expected to do it alone. However, here he was, by himself, in the vast expanse of quiet.

And this was the place where Shepard grew up, where she'd been known as 'Jalissa', where she dreamed of pointe shoes and…and he didn't even know what else.

He was here on a hunch, a gut feeling so strong it made him feel sick. It was a macabre kind of pilgrimage, like a perverse kind of treasure hunt. He could not have articulated it for anyone in a way that seemed less than…creepy…but in this instance he could live with being 'creepy.'

The Shepard homestead had, long ago, been purchased…except for a small plot of land where the family rested. She had retained that small plot in her own name and, upon her death, it had probably gone to the colony. No one, whoever held the deed to the little graveyard, had done anything but maintain its upkeep. It was not exactly a shrine, just a little, out-of-the-way place.

The monument in Central City—a place that retained its original name, even after the colony rebuilt—attracted more attention. But there was nothing of Shepard except a stone likeness in Central City. The artist failed to capture anything of the living woman—even Shepard at her most grim, her most stern had never looked like _that_. The statue's face had a merciless, unyielding quality to it that Alenko found almost Rogers-esque.

Shepard would _hate_ that statue. The Shepard in his mind, the memory he'd tried to suppress for those two achingly empty years, had snickered that a little graffiti might not be amiss…

It was his understanding, as he put his map away and turned left, that his destination was arguable in its accuracy. Shepard would have been able to show him 'the real spot'…if she was here, and if she could ever be induced to come back. He knew her well enough to know that stone markers did not make a resting place: for her, the resting place would always be the original homestead…and despite her only having come back once since her childhood, he didn't doubt she could have walked him to the exact place, unerring, like a reluctant needle to a magnet.

But that was not something he would ever see. What was there for her to come back _to_? 'Painful reminders and little else,' came the answer to his own question. But maybe he would find something in this one several headstones placed on Shepard's behalf—this one also erected by the colony before they got the rights to use Shepard's face on the colonial seal.

He could only imagine how Shepard felt about that. She'd made it clear that she had no ties with the colony when he'd inadvisably asked if she'd ever gone back.

He finally reached the spot, on the very edge of the old Shepard property. He couldn't even see the homestead—or where it used to be—from here. No trees sheltered the little graveyard, no bushes broke up the expanse of gentle, rolling hills. It was as close to a perpetually sunny place as could be desired. He could only imagine how _big_ the sky would look overhead, full of the strange constellations of someone else's homeworld.

There were seven headstones within the bounds of a small, black iron fence. All were worn with age, weathered, and modest. Moss crept on them, and the grass around them needed a trim. But it seemed as if the stones benefitted from the deepening grass, as if they were small, sleeping things tucked comfortably into the deep greenage.

The names on the stones stared out at him: Jeb, Marissa, Kian, Rhannia, Quinlan, Isabella, Gabriel. He hadn't realized how much older she and Kian were compared to the rest of the kids. It granted him deeper insight into the biting loss, a loss that would drive her life, seeing the dates on those small stones.

Was this what she saw in the impending Reaper invasion? The terrible, life-ripping loss, a hemorrhage that would never stop bleeding, a wound that would never heal, being inflicted upon countless trillions? Could she see her own depths of pain, from the freshest to whatever it was now, being projected onto others across the galaxy?

He finally felt as if he could understand her, in some small measure: he'd never had siblings, and he understood why…but looking at the dead Shepard children left him feeling oddly empty.

It was in tearing his attention away from the silent gravestones, like teardrops in the grass, that he gazed blankly at her parents' names…

So _that_ was how they came up with 'Jalissa.'

Over these seven headstones stood an eighth, much larger, more like a monument than anything else.

She had a more cemetery-traditional angel, wings outspread, head bowed, eyes closed…and arms held out from her sides as if she were a guarding presence over the seven graves. But the more he looked at the angel, the more he was certain he was in the wrong place.

Jalissa Aileen Shepard, 2154-2183, might be who the headstone was for…

…but all he found was a relic of a poor girl he didn't know: Jalissa Aileen, 2154-2170.

Shepard wasn't here.


	10. Peace

Even in the early morning Nos Astra was never quiet. The trading floor might not be open, but the only true evidence of this was the muffled sound of conversation as opposed to business. The general air was of a great malevolent beast slowly waking.

The air hung stale and cold, damp and with a 'leftover' sort of feel, like paper party decorations someone found the next morning. Smog hung in gauzy veils, exposing something of the true character of the place: it was as filthy and full of cutthroat mercenaries as any other place in the galaxy. They simply paid more to hide the fact.

Thane would have liked to take a deep breath of pre-dawn air, but knew better: he would only end up coughing up the damp, smoggy miasma. Strict adherence to his physician's orders (which Dr. Chakwas had emphatically seconded) had carried him through Shepard's mission with flying colors, but the mission was over.

That was why he was here, tens of meters over the Nos Astra trading floor (technically a place he should not be at all). The mission was over but he had a few things to do before he departed—and depart he must. He had not confided in anyone but he'd felt it, the first faint tingle then numbness in his toes.

He had reached a critical point and from here he would only go downhill, slowly if he continued to obey his physician's advice, quicker if he did not. He already knew what he wanted to do: a pilgrimage to Kahje to pay his respects to Irikah in person, then to the Citadel. It was hard keeping in contact with someone aboard a ship like the _Normandy_ —the crew spent as much time in transit as they did doing other things.

More, it sometimes seemed to him.

But for now, it was something he had wanted to do for some time…what better time than now? It was unlikely he would make his way here again. He had come to the conclusion, before joining Shepard's band, that the time for 'one of these days I'll…' had come and gone.

He almost had to smile: with the effects of the mission into the Galactic Core still fresh, almost everyone felt invincible.

Of course, his companion was the exception: she always seemed to feel invincible…or that was the impression she gave. He considered it a real achievement to have convinced her to leave the _Normandy_ for such a frivolous reason as watching the sun come up.

The first fiery sliver of sun appeared above the horizon—an unnatural horizon, given the altitude of the city. Still, the narrow fingernail of illumination seemed to highlight the smog, turning it dark so anyone watching could truly appreciate the appearance of first daylight, like a socialite making a 'fashionably late' appearance.

Unfortunately, most people on this world were probably not paying attention to it, either numb to the glory or preoccupied with other things, mundane things, tangible things. It sometimes seemed to him that Illium—or this corner of it—had given up appreciation of the ephemeral as the 'necessity' of vicious business dealing sapped the world's soul.

Was he usually this critical of a world, or was it because he was here with nothing much to do, for the moment? He did not usually measure how much or little he 'liked' a world, since he was usually on business. Maybe the criticality was a novel experience, something new.

-J-

Samara took in a deep, slow breath, her eyes hooded against the brilliant light as the sun continued pulling herself free of the restraining haze. With the ease of the well-trained, she blocked the peripheral sounds of the city at large, narrowing her world to a few key components.

First and foremost was the sunrise. As a justicar she tended to overlook the aesthetics of a place. Her attention was usually needed elsewhere, and her 'free' time had many demands—most of them geared towards keeping her on the narrow high road.

To be quite honest, Shepard's mission had kept her from having to think about the uncomfortable question of 'now what?' Now, though, this exercise provided one last excuse.

Another deep breath emptied her mind, banishing the creep of the larger world. She took a moment to fix the forced-emptiness of mind more securely before letting her thoughts drift.

The second characteristic of her narrowed focus was Thane's drift, a placid haze of celadon green and misty lavender, almost impossible to separate where one color started and the other stopped. It was a distinctly drell impression—other asari were 'muted', like whispers; turians tended to express themselves in solid tones of brown, grey, or sedate hues; salarians tended to shift very quickly, flickers of color interspersed with white, as though illuminated by a strobe light; humans were veritable riots of color, intense and obvious.

It was nice to be around a 'quiet' person: the atmosphere on the _Normandy_ was that of a sick creature beginning a long, slow recovery. Her crew had quite a way to go on the path of recuperation.

The third point of reference in her much-narrowed world was the sound of Thane's breathing, and her own. It added a sense of fixity in a world that was otherwise entirely anchored in sound and mental perception.

With such a truncated view of things, and long practice of narrowing her horizons, she could honestly say she enjoyed watching the sun come up, even over Nos Astra. For the moment, Nos Astra didn't exist: there was the sun spreading tentative warmth and there was her companion who did not feel the need to chatter unnecessarily.

"It had been a pleasure, sharing this time with you," Thane said quietly.

"Indeed." Samara paused, then closed her eyes. "I do not think we shall meet again: go in peace." The only answer was a swirl in the air as Thane slipped away. It was the only reply she expected.


	11. Divergence

Miranda frowned at Nos Astra as she adjusted her bag of personal effects. Around her spilled an exhalation of Normandy personnel, all threading their way into the city. As XO, it felt only right to wait until all those planning to leave were gone. 'First in, last out,' as Shepard's personal doctrine dictated.

It was amazing, she thought dryly, how much Shepard had rubbed off on her. She could have resented Shepard for it, but she found that she did not. Shepard had had too much on her plate to actively try to subvert Cerberus agents: she simply did her job. People responded to that, and that alone. It was an enviable power.

"If you need me," Shepard said simply as they watched the majority of the crew disembarking, "call."

"I might just take you up on that," Miranda responded—but it was an empty politeness. Both women knew that Miranda would not ask for help until the situation _demanded_ it. She was too self-sufficient to bother a friend with anything less than a catastrophe. Still, she appreciated the offer. Shepard wouldn't make it unless she meant it, which was yet another way Shepard and Cerberus differed.

Shepard nodded to show she'd heard, but also to indicate that she understood the subtext. She didn't miss much subtext.

It was strange, Miranda thought as the last few individuals who had taken Shepard's suggestion that anyone not wanting to be labeled 'rogue Cerberus member' should get off at Illium. Whether Shepard had arranged for the Illusive Man to pick them up or whether she had asked her friend Liara to help with the logistics of not leaving the crew stranded, Miranda didn't know. All she knew was that Shepard hadn't consulted her and that Shepard wasn't the sort to maroon her teammates.

Zaeed didn't count, and Miranda found she could finally smile about that.

"What are you going to do now?" Miranda asked.

"I can tell you what I won't do," came the bland answer.

"What aren't you going to do?" Miranda asked, wryly.

"I'm not going to ask you where the Illusive Man hangs his hat."

"You'd like to, though."

" _Very_ much."

Miranda appreciated the reasoning behind Shepard's restraint in this matter. She, Miranda, had found herself wedged between the Illusive Man and Shepard once before—Shepard had won out. It was a place Shepard had tried to keep Miranda out of, but had ultimately failed.

Not, Miranda appended, that Shepard could complain about the outcome.

However, Shepard also understood the sense of 'owing something' to an organization that had, at one time, been a refuge, a way out, a way to advance. Even if they'd both left the organization that had granted them shelter from their teenage plights, both women still offered something in recompense for years of security in an uncertain galaxy.

Miranda paid it, now, with her silence.

Shepard had paid it in Cerberus catastrophes for mop-up.

"I have something for you," Miranda said, finally deciding how she wanted to proceed. When she woke up that morning, she hadn't been sure she would go through with this. However, standing here, now, she found that—just as she felt she owed Cerberus a sop of gratitude, despite having left—she owed Shepard something, too.

Shepard's eyebrows knitted together.

"If you take this to Dr. T'Soni, she'll find it incredibly useful. It arrived just after the crew was taken; I didn't think you'd care to hear about it at that point." She produced an OSD, which she handed to Shepard. "I think it'll prove useful."

Shepard took the OSD and slid it into a pocket. "Thanks Miranda."

Miranda nodded. "Well, you've got a war to prepare for and I have…family matters."

"Hey," Shepard tapped Miranda's arm with the back of her hand. "Keep your head down; the Illusive Man's not going to take your resignation lightly."

Miranda chuckled. "No, he's not. But I'll manage."

It was Shepard's turn to chuckle. "I don't doubt it." Awkwardly, she held out a hand, which Miranda shook. "It's been good serving with you."

"Yes."

Shepard shook her head, but did not ask if Miranda was agreeing that it was good to serve together or if it was good that she—Shepard—had had such a reliable XO to manage things. "That's what I'll miss most: your winning personality and charming sense of humor."

"Who knows: maybe I'll grow to miss the insanely dangerous situations you get into. Try to stay alive, Shepard."

Shepard's smile grew grim, indeed. "I got a second chance; trust me, I'm not going to blow it. Give Oriana my best. Keep a little for yourself, too, come to think of it." With that, Shepard clapped Miranda heartily on the shoulder, then disappeared back into the Normandy's airlock.

If Miranda knew anything about Shepard, the commander was off to investigate the OSD.

With no further reason to hang around, Miranda set off at a brisk walk. It would make sense for the Illusive Man to try something here, however it was still a little too close to where Shepard was. If Shepard got wind of an assassination attempt…

…well, Shepard did not take attacks on her crew very well. In fact, she took them as extraordinary personal affronts.

Miranda had to chuckle yet again: when this war kicked off, it was that kind of dedication to her crewmen that would inspire loyalty as the galaxy disintegrated.

And, speaking of that eventuality, she needed to start laying groundwork. Her Cerberus contacts would be very few—it was hard to depend on the loyalties of those still in the organization. However, there were bound to be a few. Apart from all this, she was clever, cunning…

…and had made certain investments that had proved fruitful over the years. Any enterprise required a certain amount of capital. Yes, she had planning to do, courses of action to orchestrate, in other words 'scheming'…

…but first and foremost, she had family to which she must attend.

-J-

Author's Note: I always had the impression even Miranda didn't really know where the Illusive Man hung his hat. So this story assumes 'shuttles with pre-programmed destinations or encrypted navigational information dispatched as needed.' It'll probably come up again at some point.


	12. Flint and Steel

Tela Vasir sat comfortably ensconced at a table in the little café, looking every inch the Nos Astra socialite, from the dark glasses to the necklace of elegant blue-green beads at her throat to the high heels that made her tall frame outright imposing.

She sipped her coffee—imported from Thessia, a little taste of home—and watched the table at which Dr. Liara T'Soni sat. There was one not long for this world.

The problem lay in the woman sitting across from her; everything screamed 'career soldier' from the erect posture to the way her eyes would jump away from T'Soni to dart around the café. The notorious Commander Shepard—and Tela Vasir belonged to the camp that Shepard deserved her rank within the Spectres because she'd managed to depose one.

Outsiders might complain about 'bones thrown to humanity' but a Spectre knew more about the situation than the rabble: an unqualified person wearing the title of 'Spectre' tended not to live very long. If only they knew just how carefully Spectres were chosen—and then how long they had to prove themselves before the offer was ever made.

Asari were lucky in this respect: she was three hundred fifty two years old, and had another five or six centuries to enjoy her calling. Because that was what being a Spectre was, really: it had to be a calling. It wasn't nine to five, with weekends and bank holidays off. You got time off when they had nowhere to send you, or when you were waiting for a contact to get back to you. You worked during whatever hours in which work presented itself.

And, sometimes, you had to do distasteful things.

Information had come through channels, and eventually got to her: Liara T'Soni was about to come into possession of information that might make things…awkward…for the Shadow Broker. He, whoever he was, would rather avoid the distraction from his work. So her orders were clear: kill T'Soni.

This would not have been difficult in and of itself; T'Soni was no Spectre. She was tough, competent, probably formidable…but she was no Spectre.

Unfortunately, she had one sitting across from her. That was probably where her information came from, from Shepard.

She had no room to throw stones as far as the Shepard-Cerberus connection went—after all, she rubbed shoulders (though never _actual_ shoulders) with the biggest information broker in the galaxy. Spectres were called upon to do all kinds of things they would have preferred not to do.

And Spectres rarely went rogue. Saren was an exception, but according to one school of thought he wasn't even Saren by the time he was declared rogue.

She didn't know what to believe on that count and didn't care to speculate. Spectres couldn't fight bogeymen, even if they did exist.

But there were others looking into the matter. If there was any evidence—or even a presence suggested by an uncanny lack of evidence, like a black hole—they would find it. And if they did, the Spectres would immediately begin following their mandate in a single, solitary direction: they would preserve galactic stability by finding a way to destroy mechanical monsters.

It sounded like a light thought; in point of fact, it was anything but.

Vasir dragged her attention fully back to the table at which T'Soni and Shepard sat. She'd taken pains to arrive quietly, and felt confident that she had done so without being noticed by T'Soni's information network.

Not bad for a kid just out of diapers.

-J-

Liara's blue features took on a pasty color as she scanned over the data Shepard had given her. A single thought resounded in her head like a chain of sonic booms smashing against her sinuses.

Feron was alive. He was _alive_.

She looked up when Shepard reached across the table and, with a gentle 'hey', tapped the back of her hand against Liara's. "I'm sorry…did you look at this?" Shepard nodded once in the affirmative. "I take it none of this meant much to you." A shake of the head in the negative. "This tells me that Feron, the man who helped me…rescue…you is still alive. Still alive and enjoying the Shadow Broker's dubious hospitality."

"Not good. Is there enough data for us to find your friend?"

Liara chuckled softly, working not to show her own deep shock. She would prefer to deal with that in private. "Would you believe it if I said we weren't really friends? He was double-dealing between Cerberus and the Shadow Broker."

"Ugh…that could cause problems."

"Indeed. He betrayed me more than once. And yet, at the end, he sacrificed himself so I could escape." Liara took a deep breath. "I never found even a hint that he might still be alive…"

"Friend or not, you obviously want to go look for him. And I happen to have time and transportation."

"It's kind of you to offer—and if you were anyone else, I'd tell you we couldn't just go charging off." Liara bit her lip.

Shepard shrugged ruefully, "It's a hobby."

"I need time to think, to plan. I-I'm going to go home. Decide what our best course of action is. Why don't you meet me this evening? I'll have a clearer view of what's going on, and you're full of ideas about how to make long shots happen."

"Quite. Here's the address. Shall we say about seven thirty? I'll call out for dinner."

"Hey, a planning session with pizza. What could be better?"

Liara bit her lip, stifled her amusement.

"What? What's the joke?"

"Shepard, you're in Nos Astra. You could ask for the rarest, most regionally specific thing in human cuisine and you could get it here, perfectly prepared." One would have to pay through the nose, but that went without saying on Illium.

"And yet they don't have a Relay Rob's," Shepard countered briskly.

"That's because you can get _real_ ribs here, not that chain restaurant garbage. I'll see you later."


	13. Meet and Greet

Shepard's blood went cold as she realized that the police were not congregating at an apartment _near_ Liara's; they were congregating _at_ Liara's apartment. It felt very strange to walk through the police tape into an active crime scene.

The room evidenced a fight. Shepard immediately located impact marks on the windows that gave a fantastic outlook onto the Nos Astra skyline. The rest of the apartment was a mess, the kind of mess Shepard recognized as a biotic making a break for it.

So someone had lit a fire under Liara, propelling her into action. "I'm sorry, this area is sealed off," one of the officers began. "Please step back, ma'am."

"I'm—" Shepard began.

She was cut off immediately by a tall, rangy-looking asari with a confident step and purple tattoos that accented her angular, no-nonsense features. The asari had, until that moment, stood unobserved by Shepard on the second story that overlooked the first. "Commander Shepard, Special Tactics and Recon." The asari vaulted the balustrade and landed lightly, a biotic shimmer indicating exactly how she managed the leaf like flutter to the ground. "Tela Vasir," she held out a hand. "Also Special Tactics and Recon. Thank you officer," Vasir continued after having shook Shepard's hand, "you're dismissed."

"You can't just," the officer began.

"But I have and I am," Vasir responded simply. "Thank you, officer." She folded her hands behind her back, watched silently as the police force, grumbling about Spectres gumming up the works, withdrew, abandoning their crime scene paraphernalia in order to comply with Vasir's wishes.

"Were you expecting me?" Shepard frowned. She had not hidden her arrival, but at the same time she hadn't gone screaming 'here I am.' Maybe it shouldn't surprise her: Vasir was an asari. An asari Spectre had, possibly, centuries to establish her own information networks.

Liara was not the only person from whom information could be obtained, after all. Shepard found that, despite the asari's easy banter—no worrying about stepping on someone's toes here!—she was unsettled. Maybe it was just working closely with another Spectre, maybe it was just running into one in a place that looked like a war zone.

She was beginning to associate Spectres with war zones: Nihlus with Eden Prime and Saren with the beleaguered Citadel. Now she had Vasir in a Nos Astra apartment. She could appreciate Bailey's nervousness about having her in his district.

"I knew you were in Nos Astra," Vasir answered with a shrug. "I wasn't _expecting_ you, though. Come to think of it, maybe I should have. I know Dr. T'Soni was part of your old crew. Shame about that."

"Yeah…" Shepard murmured, walking over to frown at the bullet holes.

"Congratulations on your reinstatement."

Shepard turned, trying not to scowl. "Thanks. It was…unexpected."

Vasir chuckled. "So modest. One of our most notorious operatives? Hell, I might even get you to sign my chest plate."

"Nice," Shepard's mouth twisted into a grin at the asari's easy-going slightly heckling-the-new-guy humor. This was not a woman who would be easily rattled; she was someone who would be as comfortable in high heels as in the blue armor she wore. Everything about her screamed 'competent and adaptable.' "So what are you doing here, if you don't mind me asking?"

"Dr. T'Soni is a person of interest in one of my cases. And you? Social call or business?"

Shepard gave Vasir her full attention. "She's looking into a matter concerning the Shadow Broker."

"Hm. Not surprising. Heard she's got a real grudge against him. Not my concern, though." Vasir walked back up the stairs again, just high enough to give her a good view of the apartment.

"What _is_ your concern?"

"The Council tells you you don't answer to anyone but them. Don't believe it: governments like to feel special. The Matriarchs are the worst: they like to think they can snap their fingers and have a Spectre come running to see if they cracked a nail." Vasir laughed at this, a cynical sound that Shepard found herself sharing

Yes, she did know a thing or two about people wanting a Spectre at beck and call. "Occupational hazard?" she asked.

"You'd think we had enough to deal with but no. Luckily for us most people have a sense of moderation; can't have a Spectre fetching you drinks at a party when there's talking plants brainwashing colonies."

Shepard groaned in spirit at the memory of Feros—the Thorian she could (and had) dealt with. But the Cipher still unsettled her, gave her bad dreams and, worse, seemed to integrate into her half-waking thoughts from time to time.

"You'll step in worse before you retire," was Vasir's encouraging remark. "But, to business. If she's gotten close to the Shadow Broker it would explain a lot…"

"What's the situation?" Shepard asked, joining Vasir on the stairs to share the better vantage point.

"About twenty-five minutes ago someone took a shot at your friend. You've noted the bullet holes," Vasir gesture to them. "She stuck around for about four minutes. Got _that_ from our friends in the lobby. People are either really good or really bad with time when bullets start flying. Here, they're good."

"Time is money, right?"

"Heh, quick study. So, no blood, no body, and I'm stuck rifling through her _crap_ trying to figure out where she went." Vasir shook her head.

"She was expecting me. If she hung around after the attack, she may have been leaving something where I could find it."

"Call in the cavalry? Makes sense."

"Speaking of…" Shepard reached up to cue her radio. "Joker. Tell Garrus I need him. Forwarding you the address."

"You work with support crew?" Vasir arched her eyebrows, as if this was an odd thing for a Spectre to do.

"Garrus, Liara and I go a long way back," Shepard answered. "He's former C-Sec, might spot something I miss."

"Hmph. Guess you can never have too many eyes," Vasir allowed.

"No, you can't."


	14. Jigsaw

"Damn," was the first word out of Shepard's turian companion's mouth when he entered T'Soni's apartment. He went straight over to the bullet holes, tapped the glass. "Someone didn't count on kinetic barriers," he announced. "Good thing she was wearing them."

"Paranoid, but clever," Vasir noted to Shepard, as she sized the turian up. He had a lanky way of moving common to turians who were quick on their feet.

"What do we have?" he looked from her to Shepard and back.

"Just a mess and some bullet holes. Heh, I gave the cops a gold star for catching the bullet holes." Vasir shook her head. At this rate, it really did seem as though all she needed to do was sit back and wait for Shepard to do all the sleuthing work. She was clearly ready to do almost whatever it took to run her friend down.

Unfortunate. It always was when Spectres got under one another's feet.

"And I'll give you a gold star for noticing the mess. Cops tend to take those for granted," the turian responded dryly.

Once a cop, always a cop.

"Shepard?" he jerked his head in Vasir's direction.

"Vasir's a Spectre."

"That explains it." The turian shook his head, his bright blue eyes jumping from object to object. "You'd think she'd leave you a note, even if she was in a hurry. She'd want reinforcements."

"Especially since she's smart enough to know that Illium is just Omega with expensive shoes," Vasir appended. This was a truth most people could live happily without knowing.

"And fewer actual bullets," the turian agreed.

"Yeah…" Shepard began examining things in the apartment. There were a lot of interesting things to look at, most of them revealing T'Soni's deep obsession with the Protheans. Too bad the kid hadn't stuck to dead races. Ah, well.

Vasir walked over to examine the mangled remnants of a chunk of armor.

"Used to be mine," Shepard remarked laconically, looking up from T'Soni's desk.

"Looks like someone didn't like you much," Vasir answered.

"Now there's an understatement," the turian chuckled, before tilting a painting so he could look behind it.

Shepard continued looking around, as if she knew what she was looking for but wasn't sure where she would find it.

Vasir glanced at the nearest clock. The trail was going cold. She knew she couldn't hurry the investigation, but she wished Shepard would hurry up and trip over T'Soni's message. T'Soni was too cautious to try to solo something like a Shadow Broker hunt; besides, Shepard had a ship and T'Soni didn't, not one of her own anyway. And for something like this, one either needed one's own ship, or needed the ship of someone one could trust implicitly.

Damn, but T'Soni was into ugly art. Vasir cocked her head, wondering if a different perspective would make the vista more…aesthetically pleasing.

"I've got it," Shepard called from upstairs. She appeared a moment later, holding a framed picture. She brought it down, showed Vasir: it was a picture of the _Normandy_ , Shepard's ship. Shepard touched the surface of the picture which immediately changed to reveal a picture.

Shepard squinted at it, ascertained that it did not match, exactly, anything in the apartment.

"She must have known you don't get tired of admiring the Normandy," the turian rumbled, then glanced around the apartment.

"Looks Prothean," Shepard noted.

"There's _a lot_ of Prothean stuff in here. I hope she gave us a little more to go on."

There was at that. Some of that garbage was probably worth a fortune to the right people. Fortunately, Vasir and Shepard weren't 'the right people.' Prothean relics were meant for collectors and people with too much brain power and no life beyond the academic arena.

"So do I," Shepard agreed, though she continued scowling at the picture.

Considering different kinds so arenas, it was clear to her that Shepard was planning a rescue. This was counterproductive to her, Vasir's, standing orders. So, in order to complete her contract, she would either have to kill T'Soni without witnesses or she would have to kill Shepard as well.

She didn't like or dislike the human; the fact was that Spectres tried to avoid killing one another. It looked bad, for one, and it pissed off the Council for another. The galaxy was a big place and maintaining stability was a big job—they needed all hands on deck. Vasir preferred to execute this task quietly, with efficiency, and with only one dead body.

It was a point of pride for her to limit collateral damages unless she was in a hurry or in a corner. Being in a hurry left no room for finesse, and she was beginning to think now was one of those times. She meandered into the kitchen, called up her omnitool as she pretended to cross-reference something.

Instead, she passed a text message to her waiting backup—the Shadow Broker's men, deployed in case she wanted them.

 _Prepare for hard tactics. Explosives and heavy weapons authorized._

If all she could do was level wherever T'Soni was, she'd do it. Hopefully Shepard wouldn't be there when the bombs went off.

Why couldn't this just be a knife-in-the-back job? So much less trouble for everyone involved.

Vasir jumped when a slightly distorted voice (which she immediately recognized as T'Soni's) began to speak.

"Found it," Shepard announced.

Vasir came out of the kitchen, positioned herself behind the others, and watched the record of a call that plainly came just before her unfortunately failed attempt to silence the asari. While Shepard and her turian friend watched the call with intensity, Vasir entered another text message into her omnitool, unobserved.

 _Baria Frontiers office. Dracon Trade Center. Wait for my signal, then level it._

The instant the message ended, Vasir hit the 'send' button. "I know where that is; we can take my skycar."

"I just hope she's still there," Shepard breathed, shaking her head.

"So do I," Vasir agreed. "Let's go."


	15. Destruction

"There it is, the Dracon Trade Center," Vasir pointed as she brought her skycar in to land.

Shepard nodded, her repeated attempts to get ahold of Liara through conventional means having failed. The asari seemed to have vanished completely, which made Shepard absolutely certain that she was still alive and kicking.

Suddenly, as Vasir drew near the parking lot, several things happened at once: a loud _boom_ accompanied by breaking glass sounded, a rush of air expelled itself from every direction of the first three flours of the Dracon Trade Center, and that rush of moving air buffeted the skycar, knocking it off course.

Garrus and Shepard both swore as the Trade Center began to gush black smoke.

"Shit!" Vasir brought the car to the ground with some difficulty (owing to the need to descend quickly and the decreasing visibility). "They just took out three floors to make sure your friend is dead!"

"Won't work," Garrus retorted reflexively; the glance he shot Shepard indicated this was more hope than certainty.

Shepard looked away; she had more certainty than hope, having seen more of Liara recently than Garrus had. "We need to find out, one way or the other! If Liara or her contact is still in there, we need to find them."

"Go in through the main doors, I'll take the skycar, start at the top, and move down, Vasir answered, her blue brow furrowed in the kind of thought that precipitated fast action.

Shepard slipped out of her safety harness and jumped the last few feet to the pavement, glad she had anticipated trouble and worn her armor. "See you, then!" Shepard took off at a trot, her rifle in her arms.

The carnage was constrained, mostly, within the building. The immediate area outside, of course, was peppered with shrapnel in the form of glass, but any survivor who managed to avoid the glass seemed alright, just shaken and stunned from the blast.

Those who hadn't avoided the glass...Shepard forced herself to pay attention to the task at hand, though she cued her omnitool. "EDI! Get ahold of the Nos Astra Law Enforcement Office! Tell them to get gown to the Dracon Trade Center—there's been a bombing!"

" _Done,_ " the AI answered a split-second later. " _Is there anything else I can arrange?_ "

Shepard considered for a moment as she stepped over a body and through the ruined doors into the Trade Center. "Yeah…wait, no." It would take too long for Grunt to get geared and get over here. "Put the team on standby and prep the shuttle for emergency extraction. We may need to leave in a hurry."

" _What's going on, Commander?_ " Joker demanded.

"Tell you about it later." Shepard broke contact as she stepped out of the entryway into the main lobby. The emergency fire system still worked, and spewed copious amounts of water from broken sprinkler heads. Smoke billowed from dying secondary fires, casting a veil over the destruction. Static-ridden automated announcements stammered, the speakers too damaged for easy communication. When Shepard stacked the number of casualties against the overall damage to the building (that which she could see), she decided that this was a sloppy attempt with very good explosives. Otherwise, the building itself would be collapsing.

"I'm not liking this," Garrus rumbled as he immediately looked for the emergency stairs before pointing to them. Elevators never worked in situations like this; it wasn't even worth looking for the fast conveyance.

"Me neither. See the scope of the blast versus the casualties?"

"Lots of bodies, not a lot of structural damage," Garrus affirmed. "I've seen this before: high-grade military explosives used by someone without great training or a lot of time."

"How do you fill a place like this with explosives and not be seen?" Shepard's question was completely rhetorical. Even though there were people here, it was after hours; there weren't as many as there could have been.

"Shepard, blood spatter," Garrus deviated to the corpse nearest where the emergency stairs gave way to the second floor, where the offices began. He knelt, examining the wounds. "Like I thought: someone's not using standard weapons. And someone saw something he shouldn't have."

"That answers my question," Shepard shook her head. "Someone's serious."

"And probably hanging around outside the blast damage radius," Garrus agreed. "Which means we'll be running into them, sooner or later."

"Vasir," Shepard cued the commlink, "Watch yourself. We think our bombers might still be hanging around."

" _Sucks to be them. But I haven't seen anything of them or your friend. The upper floors aren't badly damaged, and I'm finding lots of survivors._ "

"Just the opposite down here. Not a lot of survivors."

It went without saying that, this close to the blast, there wouldn't be many.

Shepard and Garrus continued across the floor, relying on Garrus' visor's thermal filter to indicate live bodies. "Hey, look here," Shepard darted to one side, recognizing _something that shouldn't be there_. On closer inspection, she identified it as unexploded ordinance.

"Salarian make," Garrus pointed out, reaching over to fiddle with something on the back. "That's why it's so precise and powerful. Why waste a perfectly good building?"

"Waste not," Shepard agreed, unsurprised that one could guess a bomb's species of origin by the damage patterns. "What's a turian bomb like?"

Garrus chuckled. "The bigger the better. You don't need more than one, because we put them in the right place for maximum effect. Human?"

"Uh…we kinda throw the closest thing at hand…" She couldn't help it, remembering the unexploded ordinance that lead to the death of the Blitz's mastermind. The answer also brought back Virmire…though that was mostly the salarians.

Garrus' silence was a little too perfect. No one was free from feeling a bit superior for being responsible for better explosions than someone else.

Well, explosions were explosions and form followed function. Humans and turians generally liked to level whatever they bombed.

Shepard wondered, though Garrus didn't bring it up, what asari explosives would be like.


	16. Shake, Rattle, and Roll

Liara waited in suspense and silence, hoping her thermal scan scrambler would work.

The sounds of battle from downstairs left her certain that Shepard had both found the message and come to get her. Good.

Unfortunately, Vasir was probably here, too. If Liara knew anything about Spectres, Vasir was hoping to try to loop Shepard—that was, to kill Liara herself, make it look like an 'oops, too slow' kind of thing, and then part ways.

Spectres did not generally like killing one of their own, whatever they might feel about the agent in question. It was sloppy and a bad policy.

She closed her mind to this: she had to reach Sekat. She had to reach the data…but she had the cold, creeping certainty that she hadn't moved fast enough, that Sekat was already lost. Spectres were potent enemies; backed by the Shadow Broker's forces, as this one seemed to be, they were even more formidable.

Liara bit her lip: that sounded very cold, very calculating. As though she was maneuvering a pawn rather than relying on a friend. Or maybe that was exactly how it was…she didn't like the implication.

Implications or not, Shepard had the Shadow Broker's forces' undivided attention, and was probably tearing her way through with all the effectiveness of a battering ram on a balsawood door. Liara made to duck out of hiding, continue her progress towards Sekat's office, but the sounds of voices stopped her cold.

She waited in suspense.

"How'd he get so many people down here so damn fast?"

Liara's stomach knotted: the voice belonged to Garrus.

"No idea; Liara must have him _really_ worried if he's foregoing finesse for force."

"Shouldn't we have seen her by now?"

Shepard chuckled darkly. "Only if she got caught in the blast. She was wearing kinetic barriers in her own _house_. I don't think something as unrefined as a bomb is going to do more than keep people's attentions away from anything more than rescue and evac."

"Yeah, I was thinking that too," Garrus sighed. "Slow her down but not stop her. She's come a long way from Therum."

"That she has."

Liara closed her eyes, waited until the voices passed her hiding place. She wanted to expose herself, join the team, but decided that, ultimately, it would be better to follow along unobserved. She didn't want to put Vasir to flight yet, but she remained convinced that the Spectre was a step ahead of her in terms of execution, not of planning. She needed Shepard out in front.

Vasir couldn't be permitted to leave the Trade Center. Fortunately, one step ahead could easily be made up, and Vasir wouldn't leave until she was sure she, Liara, was dead. Sekat's data was a secondary thing, tying up and cutting off loose ends. She, Liara, was the true objective.

Though if Vasir thought a big bomb would do the job…well, Liara shared Shepard's opinion. The Shadow Broker must be desperate, so she must be closer than she thought to running him to ground. Good. He should be scared. He would start making mistakes in the way that frightened people inevitably did.

Like her security device mishap on Therum. Frightened people inevitably made mistakes, case in point.

A gunshot sounded up ahead, then another followed.

Shepard, Garrus, and Liara picked up the pace but only Shepard and Garrus passed into the room from which the sounds had come. Liara positioned herself by the door, listening.

"Shit," Vasir growled bitterly. "You get hung up for one damn second."

"Shit," Shepard repeated the sentiment. "Let's see if he's got that data. Hmph. No sign of it."

"Not here, either," Vasir responded grimly—she'd probably searched the Shadow Broker's agent's body and palmed the data, if she hadn't taken it before shooting him. Now _that_ was cold-blooded usage of people, and Liara immediately felt better about letting Shepard spearhead this part of the mission without knowing she was doing it.

"Dead end," came Shepard's thoughtful mutter. Liara could almost hear the gentle tick-tick-tick of Shepard's mental cogs working.

"Speaking of dead ends," Vasir began slowly, "any sign of your friend's body?"

Yes, she _would_ want to know, wouldn't she?

Liara stepped away from the doorway. "You mean _this_ body?" she demanded as she leveled her pistol at Vasir. At this range she couldn't possibly miss.

"Liara…" It was the only sign of true relief Shepard gave, since she immediately went back to business, and business involved a Spectre, a friend, and a gun pointed at one by the other. "Something I should know?"

"This is my would-be assassin," Liara answered grimly.

Vasir's lip curled, but the Spectre remained calm, "You've had a really long day so I'm going to let that slide. Why don't you put that down," Vasir tipped her chin, radiating extreme unconcern, at the pistol.

Shepard moved to stand shoulder to shoulder with Liara, but did not raise her weapon to point at Vasir.

"I doubled back after I left, watched you search my apartment."

"Person of interest to the Matriarchs, huh?" Shepard asked, leveling her weapon.

"I undoubtedly am, but not _this_ interesting," Liara answered. She had relied on Shepard's devotion to her crew—past and present—to bypass long explanations. Action now, questions later; it was the only way to conduct this part of the operation. "As soon as she knew where I was—was going to be—she signaled the Shadow Broker's forces. Very sloppy."

"Professional courtesy," Shepard said simply. "Walk away, Vasir."

Honorable, but ultimately pointless, Liara thought. Spectres didn't do 'walk away' very well.

Vasir continued frowning with condescension, which was all the answer she needed to give.

"I'm guessing she's still got the data," Liara noted.

"I _do_ ," Vasir agreed. The words were a blind to distract from the split second of action.

Liara barely had time to raise a barrier to block the biotic pulse Vasir launched at the clustered team before the Spectre took off at a sprint.


	17. Pummel

She was not cornered. Tela Vasir was _never_ 'cornered'.

However, she could not deny that she had been run into a junction—not a dead end—and held up. Enough so that Shepard, barely winded but breathing deeply, caught up with her. She was bound to; Vasir had known it for some time.

She had been chased before, but Shepard was one of the more tenacious pursuers.

Well, she _had_ tried to kill one of Shepard's friends, and from what she understood about the Spectre—Council backing notwithstanding, the human was to all competent judges 'tough enough' to warrant the title—Shepard tended to take attacks on her cohorts personally.

 _Very_ personally.

She kicked out, aiming to catch the marine in the midriff. Too bad Shepard was as paranoid as T'Soni, and wore full armor. This was balanced by biotics and the fact that she stood somewhat taller than Shepard, with a correspondingly long reach. It gave her an edge in hand-to-hand combat.

When a Spectre fought a Spectre, what most people would call 'a tiny advantage' was important. A tiny advantage between Spectres could mean the difference between success and failure; sometimes a tiny advantage could be the difference between loser and victor, or the living and the dead.

Normal people did not, could not possibly, appreciate what 'tiny difference' meant when referring to a fight between the galaxy's titans. It was beyond their scope…

With this smug thought, Vasir's foot connected sharply with Shepard's midriff, resulting in a satisfying 'oomph!' as the soldier careened straight into an attack she never saw coming.

Shepard staggered back, momentarily doubled over and winded, but when she looked up her eyes stood out startlingly brilliant in her pink face. Vasir paused for a split second, a single fraction of time as something so deeply rooted as to be _instinct_ tripped. For a tiny moment, a few grains of sand slipping through the glass, she was a creature looking at a predator: an injured and annoyed predator, which made the creature all the more vicious.

The momentary lapse of concentration cost her. The moment of being unsettled by the unexpected flash of vibrant color, the unexpectedly predatory look, gave Shepard the edge she needed to get her breath back.

Tiny differences, tiny advantages.

Vasir grunted as Shepard cannoned, full force, into her. It was the kind of tackle a person could be proud to perform. For a non-biotic, to try fighting an asari in hand-to-hand was…unexpected. Then again, Spectres lived by the Law of the Unexpected…and she did not underestimate Shepard because the woman was human.

Besides, humans had a heavier bone density than asari, so Shepard's blows each carried a little extra force. Vasir _felt_ it when they both staggered backwards until she knocked into something—she was not sure if it was a planter or the wall.

Whatever it was, it gave her a solid surface against which to brace herself and shove Shepard out of reach, even as the marine struggled to put some space between them again before continuing the onslaught.

Shepard regained her balance first, reaching back to latch onto the ends of Vasir's scalp.

The asari responded, slamming her hand into Shepard's extended elbow to break the gesture, only to have Shepard hit her in the face with her other elbow. Vasir kicked out, catching Shepard in the side with bone-cracking force. Shepard's 'uh!' as the blow hit was _intensely_ satisfying.

It was not so satisfying when Shepard recoiled, only to spring forward again, planting her palm into the underside of Vasir's chin. The asari's head snapped back and Vasir did not have time to fully raise her arm to block Shepard's punch. She _did_ , however, have time to turn her head, so the blow slid along her cheek rather than impact against and shatter her nose.

Regardless, it still hurt.

"Shepard! Move!" the turian shouted, unable to shoot around Shepard.

Shepard tried to drop to the floor, but Vasir caught her by the arm and the shoulder and dragged them both backwards…and out over the parapet preventing such falls.

They tumbled, Shepard trusting that Vasir would not hit the ground without biotic cushioning. Vasir had to admit, in the few moments it took to fall, that while Shepard's training might not have focused on perfecting hand-to-hand combat, she certainly made all her blows count.

Unfortunately, Shepard wasn't the biotic. With a grunt Vasir rolled them midair, Shepard hitting the ground first. Shepard let out an involuntary screech of pain as the armored asari landed on top her. Vasir bounced to her feet, pulling her pistol—ready to shoot Shepard, the human wasn't smart enough to stay down—only to have it biotically wrenched from her hand.

Looking up she found Liara in the window, as well as the turian. Liara's face was livid, and the lashing biotic field around her small frame indicated that the scientist meant _business_.

Discretion was the better part of valor, so Vasir took off at a sprint. T'Soni was a lot of things, but a soldier wasn't one of them. She was a _scientist_. An information broker: they did not set records for speed, endurance, or marksmanship.

Well, not outside the apartment, anyway.

And yet the crackle of biotic disturbance in the air, and Liara's drift screaming like a human's, showed that this was no ordinary situation. T'Soni was out for blood, and meant to get it.

One way or another.

Vasir half hoped that wounding Shepard would slow the other asari down, but her hope was misplaced.

Fortune was on her side, though: she made her groundcar with a respectable lead, jumped in and revved the vehicle to life before recklessly peeling off into traffic.

Well, there you had it…

She had only a few moments to feel smug before an unmistakable sound made her turn in her seat: the sound of small arms fire hitting her car. And there, zipping through traffic with a frenzied determination, was a…

…taxicab.


	18. Velocity

"I've got this!" Shepard barked, jumping into a taxi. There was a sparking at the control console, indicating that she had unlocked it for unlimited use—something the Council would undoubtedly reimburse the cab company for later.

Garrus squeezed himself in the back of the cab, cursing the lack of knee room as he did so.

The skycar lurched as Shepard floored the accelerator. Cars and the skyscrapers of Nos Astra flashed past.

"Hang a right, no, _left_ …" Liara urged.

Garrus frowned, drawing his mandibles close to his chin as he checked his sniper rifle. Once he concluded the weapon check, he lowered the window and leaned out of it, squinting in the wake of the car's passing. His eyes fixed on Vasir's skycar.

"Garrus! Tag her!" Shepard barked.

Garrus adjusted himself; it was tricky shooting at a moving skycar from the window of another moving skycar in the middle of what seemed, to him, to be rush hour traffic. Fortunately, he liked a challenge.

And Shepard had only said 'tag her.' "Hold this heap steady!" Garrus barked, peering through his scope. He let off one concussive round, which punched through the vehicle, clipping near the secondary powercell. The cell overloaded, yielding a small explosion and lots of smoke. It wouldn't affect the overall performance of the vehicle—this wasn't Omega, after all—but it did produce an obvious trail of smoke that was easier to track than one skycar in a rush of other skycars.

A needle in a haystack.

"Great shot!" Liara cheered.

"Hold her a little steadier and I can knock her out of the air!"

"In the middle of rush hour?" Shepard demanded.

"Over a parking lot!" Garrus returned.

"Garrus, this is Nos Astra's main thoroughfare!"

"If you don't want her blasted out of the sky, just say so! But I refuse to stay in a car with no pilot! So no jumping ship, Shep—whoa!"

Shepard swerved sharply to one side, only just remembering to swerve to the left rather than to follow her natural inclination to swerve right—the leftward evasion caused Garrus to slip backwards, into the interior of the car rather than sending him pitching headfirst as he leaned out the window.

"We need to move faster!" Liara urged.

Shepard gritted her teeth and mashed the accelerator under her foot until it seemed like she was trying to push the pedal through the bottom of the car. "This thing has a speed collar on it!" Shepard growled as a faint whine went up from the engine.

Garrus rolled his eyes: 'speed collars' were actually velocity inhibitors, usually used to discourage would-be thieves because they were a hassle to remove and restricted a vehicle's overall speed ceiling. No one wanted a vehicle that was restricted to a ward's maximum speed limit.

"I can take it off. You'll lose some play in the steering, though," Garrus warned, retracting himself through the window and holding out his omnitool.

"She's getting away!" Liara wailed, biting her lower lip, her eyes fixed on the thin trail of smoke.

"Do it!" Shepard barked. "It'll be like driving the Mako…only faster."

"Probably _still_ more maneuverable," Garrus responded.

"Oh, whoa!" Shepard yelped as she discovered just how much play had been lost.

The inhibitor suddenly crackled and the cab shot forward, sending Garrus tipping back into the rear compartment as the vehicle could fully respond to Shepard's demands.

"I told you!" Garrus called.

"I know, it's okay! I've got this!" Shepard sent them veering off to one side, slipping through traffic with an acute awareness of where the other vehicles were and would be.

"Go, go go!" Liara urged.

"I'm _going_!" Shepard responded, her tone full of forced patience as she balanced talking to Liara with following Vasir without wrecking the skycar.

Garrus, for his part, wished he hadn't 'fixed' the velocity inhibitor. Shepard drove like a maniac in the Mako; she drove like a psychopath now. Whatever the jokes, the skycar was still more maneuverable even when damaged, and Shepard's penchant for clipping too close to obstacles for the comfort of her passengers hadn't altered one little bit.

Oncoming traffic!" Liara yelped.

"Shit, Shepard!" Garrus shouted.

"We'll be fine will you people stop yelling in my ear?!" The car plunged several meters, dropping them below the flow of traffic.

Vasir now stood out twofold: her car continued smoking, and she was the only other person going against the flow of traffic.

"The hell?" Shepard breathed.

"Proximity charges!" Garrus barked. "Liara!"

The asari already had the window down.

Garrus reached forward, grabbing her jacket so she could safely lean out of the car without fear of falling out of it should Shepard have to swerve or change altitude.

A biotic push sent the first charge off to one side.

It was all Liara could do to push the charges out of the way, but the laws of physics were absolute: objects moved until they hit something. Once they did…

…and Vasir wasn't pulling punches. If one of those charges hit this vehicle, it would probably be the only charge she would need.

"We need a cannon or something!" Shepard growled.

"It's a _taxi_ —we've got a fare meter!"

"And me!" Garrus added. All the guns they needed really, he just needed a good line of sight and a couple seconds in which to aim.

"Then what are you waiting for? Shoot that lunatic out of the sky!" Shepard snarled, as if Garrus should have already figured out that he, at least, was free to fire at will whenever he decided he saw 'will.'

Garrus laughed at this, a laugh in which Shepard joined as she swerved another obstacle. He leaned out the window again, wishing for a better way to brace himself. He picked out Vasir's car, scoped in on it, found a line of sight…then promptly lost her as Vasir dodged around a corner.

"You-you're _enjoying_ this!" Liara gasped.

"Of course she is!" Garrus replied. Then, wickedly, "Aren't you?"


	19. Things Unseen

Sweat poured down Shepard's face as she continued running after Vasir. She had to give the asari credit for being a formidable opponent. She didn't think it was an option, but she'd rather let the woman _live_ —she'd made one bad pick of jobs, but she was still an asset to Special Tactics and Reconnaissance.

It spoke loudly on behalf of the program that, whether she 'liked' them or not, Shepard had, without fail, been impressed by the operatives.

"Vasir!" Shepard barked, as soon as the limping asari came into view. "I _will_ shoot you _._ "

"Yeah…?" Vasir panted. Her tone indicated she knew this very well, recognized the professional courtesy, and on some level appreciated it…but she would no more back down than would Shepard herself.

So, 'thanks but no thanks.'

Vasir's biotics flared as she pitched sideways. She seemed to vanish from one place to appear another, moving faster than Shepard could point her rifle. By the time Shepard located the asari again, the Spectre had a hostage around the neck, pistol free.

Now _that_ was clumsy…or might have been with another Spectre.

A foot, Liara's given the shape, knocked gently against her ankle. Shepard took this to mean Liara had a plan. "Keep her talking." The words were flat, undoubtedly spoken with as little lip movement as possible so Vasir wouldn't pick up signs of a counterattack.

"Why don't you give the nice Spectre your name, sweetie?" Vasir suggested, hunkering down behind her shield.

"…M-Mariana."

"Mariana," Vasir's gaze fixed unwaveringly on Shepard. "You want to live, don't you? Tell her that you want to live."

Shepard's lip curled, despite the cold feeling in her stomach. She was trained for this, yes, but it was a situation no one ever wanted to find themselves in. The simple fact that Vasir was willing to bank on her being unwilling to shoot a hostage showed one Spectre's insight into another.

Hostages were _only_ useful if the shooter cared about their safety. Taking a hostage required absolute certainty that this would be the case. "Too late to walk away; does this _really_ need to get ugly?" Vasir asked.

Shepard squished the words of assurance that jumped into her throat. Shepard couldn't afford to let Vasir know she'd formed the right impression about her. As long as even a grain of doubt remained—or could be seeded—there were possibilities for an outcome with one less piece of collateral damage.

Whatever Liara was up to, she needed time…but she'd better hurry.

-J-

"Please," Mariana whispered, "I have a son…"

"Oh? I hope he gets to see you again. I hear losing a parent is so _traumatic_ for children. Scars them for life—oh, but you know that already." Vasir scowled past Mariana's head, knees bent to maximize the cover her shield offered.

Shepard's eyes narrowed as she fought her Alliance training about collateral damage.

" _You_ wouldn't want to inflict that on a little innocent, would you?" Vasir's heart beat quickly, but her hands remained steady. Still, if she harbored any suspicions that Shepard was not up to Spectre standards…they were now put to rest.

Shepard wasn't tenacious: she was like Taetran mold. She kept coming back and no amount of _anything_ could kill her off. She was _exactly_ what a Spectre should be.

Lysana sure was consistent in her 'they'd work out' assessments, and the jumpy little optimist happily claimed credit for 'spotting the talent' years before anyone else did.

"Put it _down_. Clips, cells, all of it. We both know you won't risk hitting her, and you're not that kind of marksman."

Shepard's vibrant eyes did not leave Vasir's face, her hand did not waver, but her mouth curled into a pitying, predatory smile. "Come on, Vasir. Are you kidding me?"

Vasir grit her teeth. Did Shepard _really_ think she was bluffing? "Do you _really_ want little Johnny to grow up without a mommy, Shepard?"

Shepard snorted, unaffected by the condescending not-really-an-entreaty. "I abandoned ten _thousand_ people on the _Destiny Ascension_ —our mutual overseers among them. I _carved_ my way through hordes of geth, asari, humans, and krogan. Hell, casualties and collateral damage is exponential around me. Do you _really_ think that one single human life will protect you from me?"

Vasir swallowed, Mariana's shoulder hiding the gesture. The calm, cool, measured way Shepard spoke made the ends of her scalp tingle. It was something Saren would have said, much in the same cadence of tone. It was all undeniable, too. Shepard's body count of sapients was through the roof. "You're bluffing." She _had_ to be!

…and yet…and yet…doubt tinged her thoughts. She'd felt no doubts when she'd grabbed her hostage, but she felt them _now_.

Shepard's grim mask broke into a real smile as she pointed her gun skyward, simply removing Vasir from a bullet's path of travel. "You know what, Vasir? You're _absolutely_ right. Kudos."

Vasir caught it out of the corner of her eye, but she caught it a fraction of a second too late.

While Shepard held her attention, held the collective attention of all present, like a multitude of needles pointed at a magnet, T'Soni had slipped quietly, covertly behind Shepard's turian cohort, looped around him, and faded into the crowd. Moving cautiously, and as quickly as she dared, T'Soni had entered Vasir's blind spot.

While Shepard spun out the time by listing her grisly credentials, playing the callous, impossible-to-intimidate operative, T'Soni eased forward, and with great care, used her biotics to lift a heavy dining table. Nothing on the article rattled, nothing gave away the ambush—a true feat of biotic dexterity.

When Shepard finally agreed that she _was_ bluffing, T'Soni sent the table slamming into Vasir, the edge of the tabletop catching between Mariana and Vasir, while the legs wrenched Vasir away from her shield.

Damn them _both_!

Damn _all three of them_ , she snarled as the turian's concussive shot hit her shields, dropping the primary but not the secondary layer.

It paid to be paranoid.


	20. Round Two

Shepard staggered back as Vasir slammed into her, but after having seen the _charge_ several times, she was ready to react, if not to counter the shock of being hit so hard. If she ever wondered what it was like to be hit by a truck, she now knew.

In fact, she had to wonder if that was what Alenko felt, having her slam into him on Therum…

Shepard grabbed Vasir, exactly the way the N7 training showed it in the textbook.

"That your famous Marine Corps death grip?" Vasir spat, her voice husky from pain and adrenaline. "Watch, I'll show you how to get _out_ of it!" She shook Shepard off, only to have Shepard give a bark of laughter and latch on again.

"This is the N7 deathgrip," Shepard snarled in Vasir's face. "And _this_ is me kicking your ass!" Shepard slammed her head forward, her brow hitting Vasir's nose with crushing force. Without mercy she delivered a sharp, palm strike to Vasir, the heel of her hand slamming into the bloody patch on Vasir's armor.

Vasir yelped as Shepard finally succeeded in breaking her nose, then grunted at the palm strike. Her compromised armor gave way, sending the edges digging into the mesh and gouging into the delicate flesh beneath. She fell backwards, rather than take the second palm-strike Shepard surely planned to execute, and the elbow to the face that would surely follow.

Shepard did not settle for one blow; she struck out until her enemy could not get back up.

" _This_ is why Spectres shouldn't fight other Spectres," Shepard grunted, wiping blue blood and sweat off of her forehead.

"No, they shouldn't," Vasir agreed with a forced smile. "Good thing you're just _playing_ Spectre…"

"Shepard!" Liara shouted.

Vasir did not wait for Shepard to duck. She made a pushing motion towards the Commander, sending the other woman slamming back into the biotic pulse Liara had launched.

Liara yelped as Shepard flew backwards, encased in biotic light, immediately struggling change the trajectory of the Commander's fall. But it was so hard, when Vasir did not care if she damaged Shepard, something Liara did not want to do.

Shepard hit the ground with a grunt, ready to throw up. The conflict between the two biotic attacks made her wonder if she was going to fall apart at the molecular level.

"Shepard!" Garrus' shout carried over Liara's screech of mingled shock and anger.

Vasir's shields suddenly flickered, going out. "What the…"

Shepard wrenched her pistol free, squeezing off several rounds—more to force Vasir to react to being shot at than with any hope of doing real damage. She knew why Vasir's shields suddenly went down, and from the way Liara was suddenly peppering the Spectre with harassment fire as well, she knew.

Garrus was behind cover, Liara apparently having found time to lift him to higher ground, lining up another shot that would take the appropriately-paranoid Spectre's secondary shields down as well.

Vasir was almost not fast enough, but this time she could calculate the trajectory of the shot, based on the way the impact made her move. With a jump, her biotics flared, sending her out of reach of Shepard and T'Soni's fire. Her shields wouldn't take another high-powered shot.

"Garrus, watch for her! Liara! Now, go, go, go!" Shepard barked, hurrying towards Liara.

Liara responded without thinking, crouching behind a planter to watch the balcony upon which Vasir flickered like a blueish candle.

-J-

The turian was ready when the Spectre came up over the lip of the overlook. "Very clever…" Vasir wiped blood from her nose and mouth, her aura flaring as she _charged_. She knocked Garrus off-balance, slammed the heel of her hand under his chin, and sent his dropped rifle flying over the edge.

A soft thud distracted Vasir, who had to dodge back as the turian lashed out. The backhanded slap was more of a warding-off gesture than an actual attack…

"We're not done yet," Shepard hissed in Vasir's ear as her arm curled around the Spectre's neck.

Vasir realized, in an instant, what had happened: Shepard had T'Soni toss her up here to back up the turian sniper. Shepard alone was a formidable opponent, Vasir knew that from one bout of fisticuffs. Give Shepard a team she knew and Vasir understood why Shepard was so successful. It was not just Shepard, it was the team backing her; come to think of it, Shepard very rarely, in all the newscasts, took sole credit for anything…except failures.

"You like throwing people out windows…" Shepard continued as realization of how she had underestimated the Commander sunk into Vasir's centuries-old mind.

Shepard threw herself backwards, once again falling through the air, but this time successfully clinging to the now struggling Vasir.

It was unpleasant to fall like that, even more unpleasant to Vasir when she hit the ground first, Shepard landing on top of her. The fall was hardly fatal, but it jarred both women. Shepard managed to slam Vasir's head into the ground before the asari let off a powerful but erratic biotic pulse.

Rolling over, Vasir found the turian falling slowly, surrounded by a biotic haze…

…her eyes snapped to Liara, controlling the descent with care, but with one eye on the Spectre she meant to kill.

She was surrounded. Completely and totally surrounded. Vasir's mouth went dry, her brain working overtime to find a way to turn the situation around.

Shepard's mouth quirked as if she knew _exactly_ what the asari was thinking. "Hands," she dictated calmly.

Vasir gritted her teeth, blue eyes scanning her position. This was not over. She would not _let_ it be over. Not like this…and not at the hands of this little half a Spectre, who relied so heavily on her teammates to ensure that she won a fight. Kill or maim one of them, and then where would Shepard be?

As though Shepard caught the thought, she shook her head slowly. "Don't even think about it."


	21. Ugly

"Ugh, dammit…" Vasir growled as she collapsed to the ground. Even Spectres were only mortal, if extraordinary ones. She had finally hit her wall…and unless her secondary shields recharged in record time they would not save her from the next bullet. Shepard's drift at being made to chase her all over creation prickled, indicating that a swift bullet was probably forthcoming.

It was a bad day when Spectres had to kill each other. In the long run no one really gained anything, and the whole of the organization was weakened in unexpected fashions.

T'Soni stood over her, retrieved the OSD and sauntered back to Shepard, wholly unconcerned with the downed Spectre's fate. "This has what we need, to find the—" She stopped when Shepard shook her head, indicating that the words 'Shadow Broker' shouldn't be uttered here.

Shepard, on the other hand, watched Vasir with a rather blank expression and, interestingly enough, an increasingly blank drift. The shift moved from Shepard's irritable purple to a flat, grey; not 'indecision' but definitely some kind of quandary.

"You're _dead_ ," Vasir hissed, ending in a choking laugh as her body convulsed in protest of the exertion of not showing exactly how much pain she was in. "The Shadow Broker has been in power for _decades._ He's more powerful than _anything_ you've faced."

"Is that why you sold him your soul?" Shepard asked darkly.

Vasir's mouth contorted with real rage which bought her a few moments of clarity, pushing back pain and blood loss. "You think I'm like _Saren_?" The insult stung almost as much as the bullet wounds ached. Any Spectre would have felt the slap of being likened to Saren, even the turians who could be pretty clannish. "You think…that I sold out the Council? Or my mandate? The Broker's traded me damn good intel over the years. Intel that has saved lives and kept the Citadel _safe_." Her breath, by now, came in heaving gasps. "So if I have to trade in a life here or there…I'll do it without hesitation." It was worth it.

And you never looked the traded life in the eyes, her voice of experience dictated from the recessed of her mind. Ever.

"Right," came the flat response.

Vasir laughed again. She couldn't help it. She was probably dying, Shepard had a crusade to manage, and the silly girl was just standing there like a bump on a log looking for the answer to an insidious question in the words of a dying adversary.

The wish for an answer to the unspoken question wasn't surprising: all Spectres reached this question, sooner or later.

It wasn't a pretty answer. But being a Spectre wasn't a pretty job.

"I wouldn't talk about sold souls if I were you. The Shadow Broker deals in secrets, information. Yeah, an assassination here and there. But what about you? Cerberus?" Shepard's drift flamed red and orange. "You've seen what they're capable of…you know what they do…to your own people, even…" She couldn't feel her toes. "Kidnapping kids for biotic death camps…killing nosy Alliance officers…hell…if you think they've been…completely hands-free in that colony business…" Dizziness set in. "…keep on that judgmental track…and you'll just be another hypocrite who…who…"

Pain surged through her. Shepard had walked over, stood over her and grabbed her by the shoulder, fingers digging into the injury. "I'd shoot the Illusive Man as soon as look at him."

"So why's he still breathing?" Vasir whispered back. "Have you looked for him? Tried to look for him? Or are you keeping a shot in the locker against what's c-coming?"

Shepard stepped back, the gesture involuntary and treacherous.

Vasir couldn't smirk, but she wanted to; it was a good thing, in a way, that Shepard _had_ a Spectre to help with the brutal lesson upon whose cusp Shepard stood without knowing she stood there. Most Spectres eventually figured it out for themselves, but it was better to give one a good shove in the right direction.

And, if she had to die, she might as well make the most of it…among other things.

'What's coming' could encompass a lot of things. It was open to interpretation, but the flux in Shepard's drift indicated that the nasty questions revolving around 'what would you do' and 'how far would you go' were finally beginning to descend on her.

That was one of those ugly hidden prices of being a Spectre: sometimes you had to sacrifice bits of yourself, file away at your sense of personal integrity until you finally reached the quick. Every Spectre, living or dead, had had to do something they found horribly morally objectionable before they died or retired. Working with undesirables, levying support from the unwilling, gathering information through questionable methods in order to prevent a disaster, a Spectre did not always have the luxury of eschewing an unpalatable path of action.

Their mandate suffered when Spectres could not break through self-imposed restrictions. People died, in large numbers, when a Spectre hesitated or faltered. Being a Spectre was an ugly job, but one never found out how ugly until after one was in too deep to get out again.

And Shepard was at the stage where she was beginning to think along these lines—though perhaps not for those reasons. Her line of thought probably revolved around her 'Reapers': how far would I go to stop them? Who or how many would I sacrifice to stop them?

"Before you judge me, look in a mirror and see what looked back." Vasir knew she'd lost too much blood to keep conscious. Fortunately, she'd said what she needed to say. The doubt and deep consideration were in Shepard's drift, now.

"Shepard, we need to go," T'Soni pressed.

Vasir found she still had Shepard's stony-faced attention. Vasir had, until now, simply been giving cruel voice to things Shepard had previously ignored or avoided. "Don't judge me, Shepard. Don't…judge…"

She didn't feel them, but she heard the two shots Shepard unloaded into her chest.


	22. Worry

Liara sat in the Executive Officer's cabin aboard the Normandy SR-2. She appreciated the privacy as she'd appreciated Shepard's concerns for her welfare. She knew that, to an outsider, she might be seen as obsessive, but it wasn't true.

Shepard's kelp-green drift of deep concern had oppressed her so much that the arrival on the ship, which might have preceded a conversation over tea and Astro-Fizz, instead yielded a withdrawal into solitude and silence.

Shepard meant well, and Liara felt a little bad for having been short with her. The firm assertion 'that's what friends _do_ , Liara' echoed in her mind. She was certain there was more in the statement than a reminder that Shepard would go to great lengths to make sure her friends—usually translated as 'crew'—were safe and in good positions. If there was, she didn't try to find it.

She knew the Commander was too thick-skinned and wise to let such shortness bother her, but it did seem a tad uncalled for now that light years were all that lay between her and the Shadow Broker's ship. Shepard would write off anything untoward as 'just adrenaline.' Adrenaline was Shepard's most common justification to keep the air between herself and those around her clear.

She found the subtext of the remark about what friends did by not looking for it: Shepard was worried that she, Liara, might get lost in the mire of revenge, might lose track of the collateral damages, might not clearly perceive what lay at whose feet.

She bit her lip. It was truer now than before that she felt guilty over Sekat's death. She'd gambled and lost. Shepard might put that at Vasir's feet, but Liara inclined to accept responsibility for that herself…

…which might have been Shepard's twisty intent. Justifying one's own mistakes by putting them at someone else's feet was dangerous to a lot of people.

Liara got to her feet, staring out the suite's window without really looking.

Shepard was worried. She—Liara—had changed, and the change worried Shepard.

Liara looked away from the window, to gaze unseeingly at the pale floor. She didn't need to worry. This all ended with the Shadow Broker's death…

Liara looked up sharply, the thought stinging like a smack to the face. She needed the Shadow Broker dead…but wasn't the actual end goal to rescue Feron _alive_? Killing the Shadow Broker was just a step in the process, or should have been.

Now she saw Shepard's concern a little more clearly, or thought she did.

She sat down on the foot of the neatly made bed, smoothed the thick coverlet with her hands. Yes, saving Feron was the objective. It had, somehow, fallen out of its proper place in the scheme of things.

Liara closed her eyes. Shepard was, once again, right to worry.

-J-

Shepard sat in the belly of engineering with Garrus.

"You going to let her cap the Shadow Broker?" Garrus asked, frowning at the quasar omnitool app he and Shepard were sharing—the competition part came from who won the most virtual cash. Unlike cards, Shepard was good at quasar.

She wasn't cheating either, since they were using his omnitool and she hadn't so much as touched hers.

"If it comes to that, yes," Shepard said.

"And you're okay with revenge?"

"She's not killing a broken wreck of a man, Garrus. And I don't think the Shadow Broker will give her a choice. Besides…he came after me, once. I have no reason to think it might not happen again. _Especially_ now that Cerberus and I aren't sharing a skycar."

"After you?" Garrus frowned.

Shepard, in as few words as possible, told him what Liara had told her. It was a mark of trust that she shared the information—Garrus couldn't imagine Shepard spreading that story around. "But if you'd rather we _didn't_ shoot him…"

"No, no, shoot away," Garrus chuckled. "Just trying to look out for her." Liara had become such a driven, relentless person since they'd parted ways after the Battle of the Citadel. It was sometimes hard to reconcile the fact that the two asari with the same name really were the same person. It was a night and day difference.

"You're worried too," Shepard nodded, her lips pulled against her teeth as she thought.

They played a few rounds in silence.

"You going to try to talk her down?" Garrus finally asked. He couldn't see Shepard letting a crewman with murder on their mind—as the saying went—keep that mindset. She certainly had worked on him to that end (and put herself between his scope and his target when talking hadn't worked).

He shivered, remembering how close he'd come to shooting _through_ her.

"We'll see how she feels once the Shadow Broker's…dealt with," Shepard responded.

Garrus looked up in time to see something behind her eyes occlude. Deep thoughts lurked behind the brilliant color, dark thoughts even. "Okay, Vasir got to you. What's up?"

Shepard blinked suddenly, surprised by the insight. She didn't deny it, though.

"I don't see why you care," Garrus shrugged, surprised that his hazarded guess was correct. All he saw was a dying Spectre trying to vent some rage before falling silent forever.

"Because we were discussing an ugly question I'd begun kicking around," Shepard answered. Her tone wasn't repressive, but Garrus had the notion that Shepard did not want to talk about the question, more because she had not finished her own pondering than for any other reason.

"Well, if it gets to be a problem, you know who to call," Garrus declared blandly, though his eyes narrowed as the intention to throw a joke like a grenade manifested.

"Yeah…" Shepard looked up, smiling ruefully, indicating he would be the first person on her list.

"Chambers," Garrus said, as if agreeing with her, "she'd love to psych you out."

Shepard opened her mouth, but nothing came out of it for a moment. "I hate you."

Garrus snickered at this, shrugging.


	23. Help

"Aw, hell. What a _day_." Lysana's boots thudded gently on the ground as she strode along, eyes ranging over the catastrophic damage to the topmost level of Azure. It was a day to feel lucky: she didn't have hair like humans did, so the lingering smoke of the Dracon Trade Center's building couldn't get into it. Following the trail of destruction and eyewitnesses from one end of Nos Astra to the other left her with an urge to grab her ride and take a lap around the city for her own reasons, not because she was running down someone else's.

"What a _view_ ," she added, turning her back on the panoramic to look at the manager, "but what a _day_." And dinner—dinner someplace _nice_. If the Council wanted her to come short-notice all the way down to this cesspool in disguise, they should at least flip for a really nice dinner.

Particularly seeing that there was no way she could do more than whitewash events here.

One did not put two Spectres in one small area and expect harmony.

Similarly, one did not put two Spectres at odds with one another in one small area: they would keep blasting holes until the town was big enough for the two of them. Such was life.

Which brought her back to her current situation, and her assessment thereof.

She had not known Vasir well—nor had she known Shepard well—but she had enough of a gauge on both women to be surprised there wasn't _more_ damage. This meant that at some point Vasir and Shepard found themselves on close to equal footing.

Or rather, Shepard used her team like Vasir used her biotics…but Vasir was prone to desperate maneuvers if she couldn't run away.

Hence the hostage thing.

Lysana shook her head: hostages were risky, classless, and this was a perfect case of why.

Shepard cared about people, hostages especially. However, she had seen enough of the galaxy to know that just because _she_ put down her gun didn't mean her entire team had.

Or if they had, not all of them relied on bullets to interfere from a distance.

That was a problem with being a Spectre, and one of the reason she liked to have a cluster of cohorts ever so often. It was so easy to get hung up on working alone that when one found oneself as part of a group one couldn't manage…or when one found oneself fighting someone who _could_ work well with a team one found oneself outclassed.

And Vasir was outclassed.

Lysana frowned at where Vasir's body had reposed, where the Spectre finally ran out of fight. It was a pretty spectacular fight from what Lysana could tell.

She did not like the picture she was forming as she tracked events from first to last.

From what she understood, Vasir had either lost her head completely or there was some kind of gross misunderstanding. What was clear was that Shepard was running Vasir down, and Vasir was the source of half a dozen unpleasant incidents.

And no one was sure whether Dr. T'Soni, the first corpse on the list of casualties, was actually alive or not. Some said yes, some said no—and some people couldn't tell one asari from another. She wouldn't look like a human for anything—or ask any of her people to—but this was one of those times when it would be nice to have a little more phenotypic variation.

"It's been that!" The manager agreed, her words intruding into Lysana's thoughts.

Ugh—she still needed to either placate or settle down the local. "Well, I can give you some good news."

"Which is?" The manager demanded, her painted brows contracting.

"There were no Spectres here. _None_ —so if anyone's been asking any questions…you know what to tell them." Lysana smiled in a way that would have made even Nasana Dantius—good riddance to the bitch—stammer.

At this rate, she might just have to buy Shepard flowers, a fruit basket, a weekend here with her young man if she had one, _something_ : the woman kept taking out people for whom Lysana had no fond feelings.

Lysana smiled at the whimsical thought.

"Wh-what?!"

"I said _no Spectres_. Just a couple of commandoes having it out. A bad place for them to choose—but as you can see, at least one of them has paid for the…indiscretion. And it's only a matter of time before I run down the other one."

Yes, a matter of time and effort. Frankly, as far as she could see, if Shepard could get an asari Justicar to tag along with her, then there must be something to make that Justicar think Shepard was in her right mind and telling the truth.

And if Shepard was running with an asari Justicar she, Lysana, was _not_ going to interfere if she could at all help it. No sign of the Justicar here for today's events, but it seemed to her as though this might have been underestimating a situation that escalated unexpectedly.

Shepard had better learn—quickly—that there was rarely such a thing as 'overkill.'

"A lot of help that is! _Look_ at this place!" the manager raged.

Lysana knew what this was: the manager was angling for reparations. She was not in the mood to comply, not in light of the manager's pestering and acute approach of the topic. This was Illium: what happened to subtlety? There was a _reason_ she referred to it as 'a cesspool _in_ _disguise_.'

"And here's a little more help: mop the floor, a little paint, a new pane of glass here and there, and it's as good as new," Lysana waved. Then, because she couldn't quite repress irritation with the silly woman's fluttering, "That's why I'm here, after all," Lysana beamed, "to _help_ you. Shutting you down while I investigate certainly _wouldn't_ help you, would it?"

The manager took heed, subsiding into compliant silence until addressed.


	24. Hostile

Wind whipped past Shepard, making her glad of the gravlocks in her boots. She wouldn't have dared to traverse the hull of the Shadow Broker's ship without them. What a place to hide a ship! The electrical charge in the air was no help either, and she couldn't think of a better way to protect one's secret headquarters. The 'grey zone' on the cusp of Hagalaz's day and night was one of the most hostile, turbulent weather zones she had ever experienced.

It was also the last place she'd ever think to look for the galaxy's biggest recluse. The last place anyone seemed to think of looking.

"This is insane!" Garrus shouted over the wind, before dropping behind cover so abruptly it looked as though he'd slipped on something.

Sudden motions like that made her fear an actual slip and fall: that might just be the end of a teammate. "You okay?" Shepard demanded, her voice sharp with the need to be heard.

"Fine! Just great!" Garrus shouted back, waving one hand vaguely to indicate he spoke the truth. Clearly, he felt if he could wave his arm around then he was perfectly alright.

"It won't be so bad once we get inside!" Liara yelled back, bowing her head against the wind after speaking.

 _If_ they ever got inside, though Shepard didn't say it. It seemed a long way to go before they could get out of the turbulent weather.

She somehow doubted Liara's optimistic assessment, but not having a better plan she kept her mouth closed when it came to her pragmatic viewpoint. Right now she was an additional gun and Liara was the one with the plan. That was the story of an enlisted soldier's life. Superiors made plans, everyone else followed them.

Her perception, things being as they were, was that they would trade light resistance and horrible weather for shelter from weather and heavy resistance. It puzzled her, though, how the Shadow Broker could be so secretive when he was surrounded by so many people. One mole would be all it took; there were always people for sale in any organization. And how did one get recruited into the Shadow Broker's private army, stationed on Hagalaz? The logistical questions made Shepard's head ache.

Or maybe it was just fighting with the wind taking its toll on muscles unaccustomed to that kind of struggle.

"Hey! Liara! How's he keep his anonymity with so many goons running around?" Shepard called before laying down a burst of suppressing fire. The number of 'goons' the Shadow Broker had at his disposal was _staggering_. That they could be moved around the galaxy with such facility was frightening. They could give the turian military lessons in getting into position as quickly as possible.

"Can you imagine anyone getting off this ship without his knowing about it?" Liara called back.

Good point. "Hey! Garrus!" Shepard barked, ducking back behind cover.

"What?"

"Hit the capacitor!" It surprised her it took her so long to put two and two together: interrupt the kind of charge-gathering capacitor the Shadow Broker's ship used, and the energy stored would be immediately released. Maybe it was good sense: electricity was not discriminant when released. It could take out her or her team as easily and effectively as it could take out the Shadow Broker's personnel.

Garrus obeyed, sending a surge of electricity out and into the approaching force that threatened to pin the infiltration team.

Liara did one better: she biotically snatched up the nearest mercenary and threw her into another of the capacitors. There was a general scramble to get away from the capacitors that forced the Shadow Broker's minions out of cover; caught between electrocution and gunfire, the gunfire was preferable. Shields could do something about gunfire but not about concentrated electricity.

"We've got to keep moving!" Liara prompted.

Shepard agreed; getting bogged down was a problem. Unfortunately, between the capacitors and the Shadow Broker's people, going was slow.

"Find a way around the capacitors! Don't get too close!" Garrus called back, venturing to show his head. The lack of bullets coming at him encouraged him to move up, but the presence of so much electricity prompted him exercise great caution.

Shepard gritted her teeth, glancing enviously at Garrus and Liara. _They_ didn't have hair; hers was certainly acting up. If it stood up any straighter, she would look as though she'd been electrocuted. She was sure of it. Now was not the time to worry about vanity—there never was time—but she dreaded the practicality of having to release the electrostatic charge.

It would hurt.

The thought of unavoidable electrostatic shocks brought Alenko to mind, and a mental list of the number of times she remembered hearing 'ouch!' or 'shit!' (depending on the strength of the charge), and turned to see him shaking his shocked hand.

He would hate it up here.

Shepard dragged her mind back to the task at hand. "Are we almost there?"

"Nearly!" Liara called back. "Just hang in there!"

Shepard winced; 'hanging' was not something she fancied in her current environment.

"You've got a plan for getting us in, right?" Garrus shouted.

"Of course!" came Liara's somewhat nettled response.

"It doesn't involve lots of omnigel, does it?" Shepard added hopefully. Given the antiquated appearance of this ship's construction, it seemed reasonable to hope…but just as much did it appear insanely optimistic. If _she_ was holed up in a ship like this on a planet like this…

…well, maybe her security wouldn't completely suck by comparison.

"No, but I miss the days when you _could_ just slap omnigel on everything and make it work!"

So did Shepard: the days of omnigel exploitable securities had made her job insanely easier. Ah, well. Such was progress.

"Another wave incoming! _Where_ is he getting all these people?" Garrus demanded, dropping behind cover.

"I have no idea! Seems a little weird, though!" Shepard returned. "You'd think the supply lines would lead people straight to him!"


	25. Tunnel Vision

Liara found herself caught between fear and relief; the two emotions squeezed her so tightly that, for a moment, she couldn't seem to move or speak.

Feron was alive—alive but not well. Ill health and ill treatment left his scaly skin milky, like a lizard ready to slough. Unlike the lizard, however, the deadened skin went several layers down as the body sought to hoard its resources by abandoning the outermost layers.

He seemed asleep, but lightly, his breathing rapid.

"I've locked down the way we came," Shepard announced, having applied herself directly to the necessities. Shepard had said very little not to the point of the mission and, for a while, Liara had thought this had to do with her own harsher-than-usual words. She came to the conclusion, however, that Vasir had kicked a soft spot in that last conversation and Shepard was still trying to cope with it.

Alone.

Liara bit her lip but forced the concern aside. "Feron?" her voice trembled a little.

Shepard waved Garrus over, and the two of them began examining a map of the ship. Wish we'd brought Grunt," Garrus mumbled.

"Me too."

Most of Shepard's ground team had departed already; Tali and Garrus had both stayed, Tali in her convalescence, Garrus because he seemed to not want to be separated from Shepard. Liara did not confuse it for a romantic attachment, but one of those turian bonds that other species found unusual or sometimes discomforting. The concept of 'soul mate' was different for turians than for other species: for turians it referred to an exceptional comrade-in-arms and, by general convention, only one existed at any given time.

But enough about Garrus: he and Shepard could look after one another.

"Feron!" she called again.

This time, he heard her. His brows knit together, then his eyes opened slowly, blearily. "Liara…?"

"What are all these nodes?" Garrus' voice asked.

"I dunno…I've never seen a system like this. Look at all the failsafes. That can't be normal. The Broker's really got it in mind to keep this guy from wandering off."

"Wish Tali was here," Garrus sighed.

"Me too. Look, everything here is a closed circuit, and this one runs right out of the room and over _there_."

"Huh. Hey, how would you stop someone from tampering with your shit?"

"Sounds like a theory. It would explain all these redundancies."

"Hold on. We're getting you out of here…" Liara reached for the console, but Shepard's hand shot out, clenched iron-tight around her wrist.

"Don't! Garrus and I were looking at it. If you screw with this, you cook your friend's brain," Shepard said quickly. She let go of Liara's wrist and returned her attention to the console.

The fact that Shepard hadn't even removed the casing to get to the wires and circuits spoke loudly. "Can you disarm it?" Liara asked.

"Be faster to cut power to it," Garrus said, shaking his head. "If the Broker's being this paranoid," he gestured to the console, "it's going to be touchy as hell."

"We're going to have to find a power junction," Shepard announced, frowning at her omnitool. "Tali might be able to disarm it, but I'd rather not take the risk of killing him if I bump the wrong wire."

"I understand." Liara bit her lip. "Feron? This console—"

"It's connected directly into the Broker's info network. You've got to shut off the power," Feron supplied.

"What can we do?" Liara clenched her fists, finding it galling to come this far only to come up against this barricade now.

"You'll have to go through central operations…and that's not going to be easy," Feron answered.

"Easy or not, we're all walking," Shepard's voice cut in. "Liara," she added in an undertone, "We need to move. Now."

"Central ops looks like it should be here," Garrus responded.

"It's down the hall," Feron continued, unaware that Shepard and Garrus continued to hold conclave. It was entirely possible he hadn't even seen them, that he knew them only as mumbles in the recesses of the observation room. "You know he's waiting for you, Liara."

"I hope so," Liara retorted grimly, flexing a fist. She sincerely hoped so…

"I'm actually in support of killing him for no better reason than he's in our way," Garrus remarked to Shepard.

"Seconded," Shepard agreed. "Lucky for us he'll probably be right smack in our way. No excuses or justifications required."

"What do you think he is? Assuming it's a he, I mean," Garrus mused.

Liara didn't care _what_ the Shadow Broker was. "We'll be back for you, Feron. We didn't come this far to fail now."

"I'll…just hang out here." The attempt at humor lacked credibility.

Liara dragged herself away, joined Shepard's and Garrus' conversation.

"We think central ops is here," Garrus brought up the map of the ship. "Power usage is high, and Shepard thinks some of the power captured by the capacitors topside gets routed here to fuel any hardware the Broker might have."

"Has to have," Shepard corrected. "We haven't seen a single outward linked terminal so far. It's all been infrastructure."

"You're certain?" Liara asked.

"Pretty sure, yes," Shepard responded with a shrug.

Liara winced inwardly. She had somehow forgotten that Shepard's training focused equally on weapons and the use of technology. Her omnitool was as indispensable as her shotgun. A cold feeling, immediately deferred, crept into her stomach. For a single moment she'd forgotten Shepard was more than a hired gun, that Garrus was more than just part of Shepard's gang.

She looked up to find Shepard's attention fixed on her, but the Commander said nothing. Now and only now did Liara realized the way the hunt for the Shadow Broker—this part that had brought her within striking distance—had begun to distort her perceptions.

She'd certainly not entertained so low an opinion of Shepard's and Garrus' values on Illium.

The thought made her look away from Shepard's gaze. "Let's go. We need to end this."


	26. Miscalculations

"What the hell is _that_?" Shepard demanded as she stopped short, just within the entrance of the central operations chamber.

Liara stepped past her, glancing around the room before looking into the face of the enemy she'd pursued for so long.

The room, as Shepard expected, was full of terminals and cables. Above the room was a sort of transparent panel beyond which electricity jumped and crackled. Likely it was processed into contained form and fed through cables to the expansive array of terminals, intercoms, comm units, and who knew what else.

Shepard's guesses about the tech revealed forcibly the Commander's dual training focus.

Liara's attention fixed on the Shadow Broker, an immense, hulking shape of crude countenance and formidable build. A yahg. _Not_ what she had expected.

"You've come for the drell?" he asked, his words articulate if uttered in a coarse voice. "Reckless. Even for you, Commander."

"It takes reckless to know reckless—that stunt on Illium wasn't exactly subtle," Shepard responded, covering her surprise at finding the Shadow Broker a member of a species she could not readily identify. Clearly she felt that the reason for her desire to do this thing was obvious to all persons in the room.

Her unfamiliarity with the yahg was hardly surprising. Even Garrus' drift pulsed with orange uncertainty and purple determination.

"It was necessary."

"No it _wasn't_!" Lara barked, stepping forward a few paces, aware that Shepard and Garrus fanned out behind her to have a clear line of fire. "Neither was holding Feron prisoner like that!"

The Shadow Broker chuckled, a scalp-tingling sound that made her shudder inwardly. "The drell's condition is of his own making: he betrayed me by helping you steal Shepard's body. He is simply paying the price."

"And you wanted to sell my body to the Collectors. You had to know I wouldn't take that well," Shepard remarked darkly.

"It was a mutually beneficial partnership. Fortunately the Normandy's IFF will allow me to navigate the Omega-4 Relay and salvage what I wish."

If he meant to surprise or wrong foot Shepard by displaying this knowledge, he failed signally. Shepard laughed, a cold sound that clearly indicated he could have her ship over her dead body, and he shouldn't make any cute jokes about that being the idea.

The Shadow Broker's triangular mouth gaped in what Liara realized was a smile. "Those you love are so often stripped away, Commander. I wonder if it might not be of benefit to you to be reminded of this."

Shepard's drift seemed to flash freeze, then explode. What had previously been dead seriousness with a veneer of humor changed to a homicidal intent Liara didn't know Shepard possessed. The Shadow Broker really hit a nerve.

"Coercion doesn't work on me. It just pisses me off," Shepard remarked dryly, with no sign of the fear that huddled at the core of the shrapnel field her drift seemed to contain.

"I was not suggesting coercion."

Liara forced herself to laugh, found that the sound came easily because it was the last thing she felt like doing. She could not afford to let the Shadow Broker know that, now that she was here, she really was afraid. Not afraid of him, per se, but the smothering force of personality he exerted, the way he waved secret things about, brandished deeply personal items as a threat…it made her wonder what he knew about her…

She let the anger bolster her, even as Shepard's drift consolidated into a single burning ember—an ember the size of a planet. That gave her a little more courage. "You're quite confident for someone with nowhere left to hide." Her voice came out smug, superior, and she found herself restored to grim determination. Time to see whether her own conjectures would have any impact on this…creature.

She rather thought they might: yahg weren't known for holding onto their tempers.

"Your friend Archangel's bounty remains unclaimed. It will decidedly cover the losses I've incurred because of your visit. You have my thanks."

Garrus' drift sparked and fizzled. "He talks too damn much. How come we keep getting stuck with the talkative ones?"

"That's a benefit," Liara remarked sweetly, finding a homicidal smile creeping onto her lips. Threatening the others as individuals had proved a misstep on the Shadow Broker's behalf. She thought she might have found some insight into the driving force that brought Shepard down like doomsday on the people who threatened or harmed her crew. "Let's see if I can't match him."

"Oh, this should be good," Garrus rumbled.

"You wanted to know what he was?" she addressed the room as if lecturing to a class, her voice oddly steady compared to the adrenaline shakes rocking the rest of her. "He's a yahg. His homeworld was quarantined after his people massacred a Council first contact team. He shouldn't even be here. This ship is older than his planet's discovery. Which probably means that he killed the original Shadow Broker and took over. I would guess that he's here because he was captured in the wild. The Shadow Broker wanted a trophy, maybe a slave…or perhaps a _pet_. How am I doing?"

She'd hit the right notes, all the right notes, like a concert pianist delivering her recital's crowning work.

The Shadow Broker got slowly to his feet, revealing that he had not been sitting on a chair, but had been crouching behind his desk. He seemed to fill up the room in his immensity, like a balloon filling up with air. 

Suddenly, he let loose a roar, picked up his massive desk and flung it at the intruders.

Shepard threw herself forward, rolling as she did so, thus avoiding the flying desk.

Liara raised a hand, batting it aside with her biotics—and realized too late that she had diverted its path of travel sufficient to strike Garrus. She glanced back quickly to find the turian stunned on the floor. Fear gripped her at this amateur's mistake…


	27. Over

Shepard did not wait once she was sure the Shadow Broker was dead. She ran over to Garrus, checked his pulse, and breathed a sigh of relief. "He's okay! Just stunned!"

"…good." Liara's voice sounded a bit unsteady. Shepard glanced over her shoulder at the asari, who seemed in a state of shock.

Shepard opened her mouth as the electricity supporting central operations finally stabilized itself, the various systems restarting and displaying data, updates, and communication channels previously closed.

Within seconds, agents began calling in, all wanting to know what had happened, whether the network was still up, all calling out for information.

Liara hurried over to the main console, looked around in a slightly panicky way, then took a deep breath. "This is the Shadow Broker," she announced in a tone of forced calm. "The situation is under control. We experienced a power fluctuation while upgrading hardware."

By now, Shepard could see what she hadn't before: an ID scrambler hooked up to the communications console. That explained how one Shadow Broker supplanted another with no one the wiser.

"It disrupted communications momentarily. However, we are now back online. Resume standard procedures. I want a status report on all operations within the next standard day. Shadow Broker out." Liara severed the connection, then leaned heavily on the console as if strength was draining of her.

Shepard turned at the sound of running feet, leveled her shotgun only to see Feron skidding to a stop upon finding himself on the business end of a firearm. He raised his hands, but peered past Shepard, evidently relieved.

Doubtless the all-call had been reactivated with the system restart; he would only have heard the scrambled voice and would, of course, assume the Shadow Broker emerged victorious.

Well, the Shadow Broker _was_ victorious, Shepard thought sourly as she lowered her weapon. After all, the Shadow Broker had just demanded status reports.

"…it's _you_ ," Feronmoved dazedly forward—his gait hampered by a pronounced shuffle of the left foot as he walked—when Shepard stood aside, going back to kneel beside Garrus. "But-how…?"

"Well…" Liara said slowly.

"Ugh. Did we get him?" Garrus slurred, his eyes blinking rapidly.

"Yeah, we're okay. Everything's okay," Shepard assured him as she helped him sit up.

"So what happened?"

"Ah…you got taken out by a flying desk." She wasn't sure she wanted to admit it, but followed up with, "Weren't you always saying a desk job would kill you?"

Garrus chuckled at this, letting Shepard help him to his feet. "Where's the yahg?"

"Dead."

"I meant where's his _body_?" Garrus corrected himself.

"Uh…burnt to a cinder. Kinda unavoidable, you know." Shepard cleared her throat at this. It had been, after all, a rather desperate thing to do.

"I'm…going to go find some _ice_. My head's _killing_ me," Garrus announced.

"Want me to go with?" Shepard asked, looking from him to Liara.

"Nah. I think the kid's gonna need a pep talk," he added more seriously.

Shepard nodded her agreement, turning her attention back to Liara, who still leaned on the console. She was just in time to see Feron nod, then shuffle towards the entrance, looking a bit self-conscious. Garrus promptly took charge of the drell—knowing better than to leave a man who'd been held prisoner by a yahg for two years to his own devices—leaving Shepard and Liara alone.

Shepard walked over to Liara. "Is taking over from him really okay?" she asked gently, phrasing the question so as to be somewhat ambiguous.

Liara looked up, her blue eyes filling with tears.

Shepard knew the look: one didn't finish a longstanding obsession without an emotional reaction. Goodness knew she'd spent time reorienting her thoughts and feelings after destroying the Collectors' base.

"It was either that or lose everything. His contacts, his trading sources…those will really help us. With the Shadow Broker's information network I can…I can give you…I can…"

Shepard reached out an arm and gently pulled the asari to her. Shepard was not in the habit of hugging people, but it was terribly clear that Liara was about ready to burst into tears and needed a shoulder to vent on. She might feel awkward about this sort of thing, but Shepard wasn't callous on that account.

Liara did burst into tears, sniffling softly. "It's finally…two years…and it's over…"

"Shh. It's all right." Shepard let her cry, patting her back bracingly.

"I-I'm sorry," Liara said a few moments later, drawing herself up and wiping her cheeks free of tears. "I spent two years mourning you and Feron. And n-now I've got you both back."

"Come on Ms. Archeologist," Shepard prompted, towing Liara over to the console. It was best to have something to do when this sort of emotional crisis occurred, once the tears stopped and the mind started to reorder itself. "Let's have a look at this relic."

Liara let Shepard guide her to the console and immediately began leafing through it. "No restrictions, no passwords, open permissions…he never expected anyone to be here but himself. There's so much here…I-I'll need some time, to figure out what's here." It was staggering.

"You still look a little worried. Anything I can help with?"

"As if you hadn't done enough," Liara sighed. She looked at the console, then back to Shepard. "I've rescued Feron. The Shadow Broker is gone. The mission is _over_ …but…is it wrong that part of me wants _this_?" She waved to indicate the Shadow Broker's position.

Shepard shook her head. Her thoughts all boiled down to the adage about the devil she knew. "No. No, I don't think so." Then, with a smirk, "To the victor go the spoils, and I've still got to finish my hitch with the navy."

"Yes…I _know_ this will be useful. I can help you with the Reapers…"

"I know." Shepard patted her shoulder reassuringly. "I'm going to go check on Garrus. Will you be okay on your own?"

Liara looked Shepard in the eye, tried to smile. "For now."


	28. Professional Courtesy

"Liara, on the off chance Vasir survived…" Shepard spoke up, sounding gruff—her way of being uncertain and trying to hide it. Liara only knew this because Shepard's drift was a pulpy, wet dirt and stale water smelling brown.

"On the off chance she survives, I will chew her out thoroughly and put her back to work," Liara answered simply. Shepard's respect for the agent had been clear throughout their association. Liking or approval didn't enter into the matter.

Shepard nodded satisfaction with the answer.

"You didn't really want to kill her, did you?" Liara asked gently, watching Shepard's hardened expression. It was, and she could tell this was, a delicate subject. It brought up the question 'how far would you go to achieve your aims?', 'what losses would you consider acceptable?' Shepard already had to answer the second question several times and did not like the answers she'd given. She was in the process of answering the first and if the collateral damage hadn't begun piling up yet, it soon would.

Shepard sighed heavily, then shrugged. "I don't know. Maybe."

"It's always hard to take down people we admire," Liara agreed.

"Two shots, center of mass, I doubt we'll need to worry about it," Shepard answered repressively.

Liara turned away so Shepard wouldn't see her smiling. There it was, Shepard had just put another toe across a line of Law and Order into the dubious gray area in which Spectres worked.

Leaving Vasir alive would be beneficial to the galactic whole, and Shepard could only blame the asari for those things she had witnessed. And since she, Liara, had survived the encounter—survived and replaced the Shadow Broker—Shepard could afford to feel generous.

It was a murky place for Shepard to be, and Liara knew very well that Shepard would not want to think about it too hard. The ugly question of who was expendable, of how expendable they were, of whether one Spectre's life was worth who knew how many casualties…

Well, that wouldn't be comfortable to Shepard. Because Shepard would be asking herself if she wouldn't have gone to the same extremes to run down someone _she_ was after. Shepard might not resort to bombs, but evading all those proximity mines on Nos Astra had caused damages and, in all likelihood, deaths.

Shepard was the sort to deal with this ugly gray area only when she had to. Otherwise, she kept to the high ground as best she could and focused on her assigned tasks.

Liara knew, though, that if Shepard thought there was a possibility for Vasir to survive, then Shepard's heart hadn't been in killing the Spectre.

Vasir was probably half dead somewhere, but 'half dead' wasn't 'all dead.'

And Vasir could probably appreciate what waking up meant. Professional courtesy wasn't dead.

-J-

"Damn, Tela, you're either really lucky or just hopped up on dumb luck." The high voice held a quality akin to bouncy, perky cheerleaders, and it made Tela Vasir want to roll over, stick her head under a pillow and hide until it went away.

Unfortunately, pain and a sense of something not right in the world stopped her. She opened her eyes blearily, watched Lysana—Special Tactics and Reconnaissance—come into focus.

"The hell you want?" Vasir slurred, her perception of pain increasing.

"What I want doesn't matter. This is business," Lysana waved.

Vasir groaned, tried to readjust her weight, but found she couldn't—her body was numb. Fear shot through her, thoughts of paralysis menacing her. "How…bad am I hurt?"

"Well, _I_ can't believe you survived that," Lysana answered. She pinched Vasir's toes, and Vasir felt her foot jerk reflexively.

Thank goodness, she could still run if she needed to. She'd been a Spectre for so long that she couldn't imagine taking a desk job. There were no desk jobs in Special Tactics and Recon. The idea of being kicked out of the program was worse, in some ways, than being menaced with torture.

So why was she alive? Shepard had certainly looked intent when she pulled the trigger. From the pain she was in, it was clear the other Spectre hadn't pulled punches.

That _was_ odd. At that range Shepard should have put the bullet between her, Vasir's, eyes. One didn't usually survive bullets to the head. Bullets to the chest of an armored person though, people survived those all the time.

Or maybe just Spectres did. Regardless, it appeared her secondary shields had had time to recharge and keep Shepard's two bullets from doing fatal damage. Imagine that…

"Seems like someone didn't really care if you lived or not," Lysana continued, echoing Vasir's own thoughts. "Otherwise she'd have capped you in the head. _I'd_ have done it…well, maybe not. You're a good agent, even if you're grumpy. Speaking of doing it…why _did_ she want you dead?"

'Want' didn't come into it. Shepard hadn't _wanted_ her dead. It was all over the human's face, in her voice.

' _I'd shoot the Illusive Man as soon as look at him._ '

Maybe because on some level Shepard agreed with the remarks Vasir made about a Spectre working for Cerberus. Having someone voice one's own thoughts was always an unpleasant thing.

Wanting to shoot the head of the organization was something else entirely: the fact was that that organization's boss was still breathing and Shepard was still corroborating. Until that promised bullet found its target, the two situations of the two Spectres were alike enough that there need be no argument on the matter.

Vasir closed her eyes, pondering this. By now, if the Shadow Broker was killable Shepard would undoubtedly be doing something about him. She couldn't do shit, and by the time she was up and about…well, who knew?

"Hey, you listening?" Lysana asked.

"The hell I'm, not. Go away," Vasir grumbled, opening her eyes to regard Lysana wryly.

Lysana shook her head ruefully. "Hurry back to work, Tela." She patted the other asari's ankle, and took her leave as requested.


	29. Viewpoint

Shepard looked up at Liara's light footfall, pushing herself off the floor, and composing her expression. From the look of things, Shepard had received information that caused her to put her back to the nearest solid surface and slide to sit on the floor, knees drawn up, in order to think hard.

"Shepard? What is it?" It was not like Shepard to let her façade crack when in public, and while Shepard still considered Liara a crewman, Feron certainly was not. Not that Feron was anywhere in sight, but Shepard knew he was on the main deck somewhere. Usually she wouldn't risk being seen as anything other than the indestructible Commander Shepard—the person the galaxy needed her to be.

Shepard shook her head, heaving a sigh with a trace of huskiness to it, as though her throat was not working correctly. "You know, for the past months I've been blaming the Alliance—Admiral Hackett—for not sending someone to come get me, once they realized the rumors were true. Now…" She grit her teeth, her drift turning a frustrated root beer color, complete with fizzles of anxiety. "Now I find out the Alliance _did_ want to send someone to come get me. And guess what? It would have been an _interrogation team_." Shepard's hand shook, prompting her to close it into a fist to stop the tremors. "…and he said _no_ …Admiral Hackett, I mean." The knowledge hit her in the guts, and made her wonder if somewhere she had not been a tad hypocritical.

An Alliance interrogation was not something she wanted to know about firsthand, and she shuddered at the thought. What had she done in her years of service to make people think she'd cross sides?

"Shepard," Liara shook her head, "the Alliance and the Council _did_ hang you out to dry—you can't be expected to sit around all day and measure every single person individually—you'd never get anything done. And you can't pretend you knew him very well. He was top brass, you were a junior officer."

"Two years gave you a lot of insights." Shepard used the words to fill the air, feeling uncomfortable with empty silence. People kept assuming she was with Cerberus by choice without any kind of necessity involved. She had assumed Admiral Hackett was hands-off because of Cerberus…it was only here, now, that she realized she had been primed for the viewpoint that the Alliance had abandoned her.

Jacob did it, most likely without meaning to influence her perceptions. It had reinforced the feeling of isolation and abandonment in those first few weeks, then came Hackett's one communiqué, telling her where her ship's body was.

 _Should_ she have seen through this? Or was it simply proof that she was human, fallible, and capable of making misjudgments. Was it excusable?

"You're only human, Shepard," Liara said softly, the pulse and shudder of Shepard's drift, dismayed purple, evoking deep sympathy for the human. She did not think Shepard had misjudged anyone: Admiral Hackett was a cautious man, the type to put Shepard on a long rope and see if she hanged herself with it. "As for the past two years, I've spoken with a great number of soldiers in two years. I get the feeling I may need to speak with a few more: you can't be hanging around here just because you've run out of things to do."

"I'm procrastinating the in-person visit to the Citadel by chatting with an old friend," Shepard sighed, running a hand through her curls. "I don't mind telling you: I'm not looking forward to it."

Liara looked away, biting the inside of her lip. That _was_ going to be an uncomfortable visit for someone—likely, though, not for Shepard. Liara imagined humble pie stuffed with crow would be on the menu…but she also felt Shepard's morose doubts about the ability of the Council to accept her word, with or without proof.

Those determined to remain blind would do so, proof be damned.

"I have something for you." If Shepard ever needed a distraction, now was as good a time as any. "Now is not the best time I could choose, but it seems it will have to be now or never." She hurried away, leaving Shepard deep in thought.

"Here," Liara held out a white shadowbox, designed similarly to a freestanding frame for a holo when she returned. "Admiral Hackett contacted me awhile back, though in a roundabout way. He wanted you to have them, and I was instructed to tell you…"

"Godspeed." Shepard's fingers closed over the box containing the mangled remains of ID tags. Unreadable, charred and deeply scored, she knew them by instinct. How had they survived? Regardless, it was a tangible proof that someone hadn't wholly swept her under the rug.

"May I presume to give you some advice?" Liara asked quietly.

"Why not?" Shepard ruffled her curls as she examined the tags.

"The next time you see Alenko, don't even talk to him."

Shepard looked up sharply, but more out of surprise at the direction the conversation took than anger at what might be perceived as a hint to 'just give up.'

"Don't try to explain yourself," Liara continued calmly, smiling at the sudden yellow of Shepard's drift. "Don't try to reason with him…" She almost laughed at Shepard's expression, a mix at horror over receiving dating advice from the _shyest_ (or formerly shyest) asari she knew and shock at the advice she was getting. "Just kiss him hard enough that he can't talk. It'll keep him from digging that hole he's standing in any deeper. He'll appreciate it. That should get things rolling in the right direction."

"I don't even know what to say that." Shepard announced, blank with surprise at the advice.

"There's nothing to say," Liara answered as sweetly as she could. Shepard's expression became mildly suspicious but still amused as she waited for the axe to fall. "It falls under the heading of unconventional warfare."


	30. Journey

It was raining hard, turning the grass between the regularly-spaced burial markers incredibly green and the now-traditional red poppies into vibrant torches of color. It was cold, his breath coiling upwards as he picked his way along the ranks and files of monuments—many of which bore flowers, none of which were currently being visited.

The ground sloshed beneath his boots, the wind picked at his clothes. It was exactly the sort of bad weather one would associate with the resting place of heroes: the sky seemed to weep for their passage; the world seemed colder for the lack of the lives represented here.

Shepard's headstone at the military cemetery was like all the others when he eventually reached it: the traditional boots/helmet/rifle setup on a pedestal, the symbol of her religious affiliation etched into the pedestal above her name. In Arlington, back on Earth, the white crosses of bygone years remained, but the markers had been updated. Many people did not realize that quite a few of the markers' plinths were hollow, holding small urns with the ashes of the deceased.

Of course Shepard, having died in space, was not actually _buried_ here, but it was here, nonetheless, that the curious or the prompted could come to 'find' her.

 _Lt. Commander Jalissa A. Shepard_

 _2154-2183_

He'd brought flowers with him.

He'd carried a few sprigs of lavender in the inner pocket of his jacket on Mindoir too, but in that case it seemed almost rude to leave the flowers for one woman on the grave of a different girl altogether. The girl in the grave hadn't known him. He'd had the uneasy feeling that leaving her Shepard's flowers would just…make the poor girl uncomfortable.

One was not as good as the other, so the lavender stayed with him, and a polite word to the girl in question was offered, as if she were just another sibling Shepard had lost on that long-ago nightmarish day. Surely that would have appeased anyone…lingering.

It had certainly appeased his sense of the rightness of things, the one that generated 'ghosts' for his own benefit.

He looked down at the current monument, the stern letters gazing back up at him, cold and impersonal, rain beading up and sliding down like cold sweat. The grave was impersonal, it looked exactly like every other marker for every other soldier killed in action in the whole of the cemetery.

It was unremarkable, and she would have been grateful.

The cold emptiness that welled up in him made him feel like a ghost, or an intruder, a sight-seer come to goggle at the relics of bygone warriors. According to common belief, any soldier laid to rest in one of these cemeteries bore the legend 'hero.'

The faint sound of feet marching drew his eyes to the requisite Tomb of the Unknown Soldier. Every major military burial place had one. At the time of her death Shepard would, he suspected, have preferred to be filed with the nameless, faceless soldiers: a place for those who slipped through the cracks or fell into the haze of smoke that surrounded dozens of engagements. It was a place where none were forgotten, where all were remembered. There was…togetherness.

Overhead thunder pealed. He did not often hear from 'the Williams in his head', the memory of the enthusiastic but matter-of-fact gunnery chief. He heard from her _now_ however, pointing out that the thunder and lightning were just a _bit_ over the top. Graveyards were somber but rain and storm were just plain old _depressing_.

Strange that he should think more on Williams than on Shepard. It was Shepard he was looking for, some sense of her, some gut feeling he couldn't describe for another soul but had to find…or be sure he would not find.

Alenko heaved a sigh, sending a column of steam rising from his mouth. A fresh breeze brought to his nose the sharp, clean scent of the flowers in his hand. They were simple, the only flower he associated with Shepard and not for poetic reasons. She'd worn its scent once, as perfume, but the memory seemed to have lodged in his mind like shrapnel. He knew memory linked to a scent was often very strong…but this one seemed exceptionally so. It was the equivalent of catching sight of her out of the corner of his eye.

The handful of stems of lavender he meant to leave her seemed impertinent, an offering made to a woman who shared the same name as the one he sought, but who had nothing to do with her. The first time he'd ever brought flowers to her grave and the grave just wouldn't have them.

It was ironic, in a way, considering the terms upon which he'd last seen her…if it was her…

…something cold settled in his stomach. It was not what he was looking for, but it had a direct bearing on his self-assigned journey.

Once again, when confronted with one of Shepard's many markers, he found that she wasn't there. This woman the marker represented was a proud Lt. Commander in the Alliance Navy. Here lay the Hero of Elysium, the Savior of the Citadel, the First Human Spectre…

…but there was nothing of Jalissa here.

Not for him.

He shifted in the wet grass, then looked up, suddenly inspired, as if the ghosts of the dead represented here had reached out to blow cool breaths against his neck—not as haunting, malevolent forces, but as protectors, as the comfort some found in looking at the markers of departed loved ones.

Williams was here…she was here and it was Williams, not Shepard, who had spent most of this visit in the forefront of his mind. Shepard was his reason for being here…but it was Williams' memory which seemed to keep him company.

Williams was here, and she would not mind holding Shepard's flowers. In fact, she'd probably snicker at him for having gone to the wrong apartment, as it were.

-J-

Author's Note: Here we are, the end of _First Thermodynamics_! A very short installment for the Newton series, I'll admit. For _Arrival_ , more of Jack, and the tying-up of several loose ends, stay tuned for _Second Thermodynamics_! I hope to see you there!

Thank you to everyone who has read and/or reviewed, faved and/or followed. Your support is greatly appreciated.

~Raven Studios


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